


Disgrace

by SkeeBallCatt22



Series: Disgrace [1]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, Observers - Freeform, One or two graphic images, Out of Character, Platonic Relationships, new characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 43,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28406799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkeeBallCatt22/pseuds/SkeeBallCatt22
Summary: Something is wrong with Grian and it's out of everyone's control.For the most part at least.How fun.Maybe the hermits can win this one.
Series: Disgrace [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160816
Comments: 47
Kudos: 151





	1. Blow Us All Away

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, this is my first fic, please be cautious. criticism is so very welcome.

CHAPTER 1

The explosion rang throughout the jungle, rattling the large bases. Iskall almost fell out of his omega tree from the shock wave. He climbed high into the branches to look in the direction of the explosion. It hardly took climbing to see the damage done. Or not see.

The mansion Grian had patiently worked on all season, was gone. Only little bits of dark prismarine and gray concrete stood in its place, along with exposing the inner workings of the base underneath.

Iskall took a double take. Had someone blown up Grian’s mansion? Who would have done that?

Leaves rustled to the left of Iskall.

“You’re seeing what I’m seeing?” His friend, Mumbo gawked. Iskall could only nod.

Equipping their elytras, they zipped down to the crater that was once a majestic build. They stood and stared at the damage. They probably would’ve stood there for hours hadn’t it been for Xisuma flying down behind them.

“What in the world is going on?” The bee said. Mumbo and Iskall turned around, clearly as shocked as he was.

“We just heard an explosion!” Mumbo said, breathing out and throwing his hand in the air back towards the ruins. Xisuma stepped forward, not noticing the hole in front of him. He fell with a thud onto something. Or someone.

He swiftly stood up, looking down at who he fell on. Mumbo and Iskall overlooked. Xisuma could have sworn he was dreaming. It was Grian… in a dark teal sweater. Out of all the sights over all of the seasons, this had to be one of the worst. While TNT wasn’t unartistic for Grian, everything else about the scene was.

Xisuma lifted Grian out of the hole and set him on the ground next to Iskall and Mumbo. Blood trickled down from his head and he was bruised. It was clear he hardly made it out alive.

“Does anyone have a health potion?” Xisuma said, somehow keeping his voice calm.

“I do.” A voice said from behind X. Stress walked up and handed Xisuma the red bottle. He poured the ruby liquid into Grian’s mouth and watched the bruises and scars fade, leaving only red marks. Grian’s eyes tightened, but he didn’t wake up. Xisuma jumped up from the ground and looked around. On the other side of the path, Bdubs and Scar stood, mouths dropped.

“What in all that is holy happened?!” Bdubs yelled. The four other hermits exchanged glances of worry. Scar and Bdubs ran over and looked at Grian. “Oh no!” He gasped again. “Who could have done this?” Scar said, adjusting his monocle and leaning down to Grian. Xisuma looked around.

“Now, let’s not jump to conclusions, no one would- “

“Why were you over here, X?” Mumbo asked, narrowing his eyes. Iskall piped up.

“Yeah, you’re on the other side of the jungle!” Xisuma took a step back and looked at them disappointed.

“Don’t go around blaming people. No one on this server would have done something like this!” He retorted, looking at Stress to back him up. Mumbo and Iskall nodded slowly.  
“And what about you, Stress?” Iskall said, crossing his arms. Stress looked at him with shocked eyes.

“Iskall!” She said, betrayed. She laughed and so did Mumbo and Iskall, not taking the blaming seriously. Iskall shook his head.

“I mean; you did show up right in time to give Grian a very convenient potion.” He mocked. Mumbo’s face dropped. He looked at Iskall and then to Stress.

“You have a point though.” He said. “Grian wouldn’t have done this alone. There is no way. He snapped at me for putting TNT 50 blocks away!” He spread his arms out as he described. X shook his head.

“Listen, maybe a couple charged creepers got-” He was cut off again.

“A couple? You think a couple creepers blew up his whole base?!” Bdubs said. “Sounds to me you’re reaching for straws!” He said, accusing. Scar nodded.

“Do you guys hear yourself?” She asked, panicked. “You’re blaming Xisuma! Xisuma!” She took a deep breath and looked at the mayor and his manager. “And by being HEP, you two fit the bill perfectly. Not going to even mention how Bdubs, as a Boomer, has access to all that TNT!”

Xisuma looked at her, a little surprised she would blame others as well. He shook his head. “Let’s stop putting blame on each other and think. Grian’s home has blown up and we don’t know what happened.” He looked at the hermits. “For now, we keep this to ourselves. Don’t try to hide it, but don’t tell anyone straight. If you guys are acting like this, I don’t want to hear what Doc or Cub has to say… or what people have to say to them.”

The hermits nodded and Bdubs and Iskall looked down at Grian.


	2. Shocking Realization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some graphic stuff, please proceed with caution. It only last for a second or two, but warming for those who need it.

CHAPTER 2

Xisuma took Grian back to his base. The group, minus Iskall and Bdubs, decided that he’d stay with X until further notice. He took him to one of the towers and set him up in a bed. Grian moved to get comfortable, flipping onto his stomach. X patted his back and stopped. Did he feel something? Xisuma put his hand on Grian's back and felt a huge concave. Grian flinched and rolled onto his side to pull his legs up. X stepped back. On the top of his back was a crater almost.

Despite Xisuma’s worry and fear, he rolled up the back of Grian’s sweater and undershirt. He jumped back in horror.

It could only be described as a crater. Where the spine was supposed to be was a dip from his shoulder blades to the middle of his back. Large chunks of maybe bone stuck out under the skin. The skin was a dark teal, heavy bruised, but somehow hadn’t healed from the health potion given to him.

Xisuma looked again, this time prepared. Lifting the sweater and undershirt, he looked again. He put a hand on it, trying to feel a spine. But he didn’t. Instead he felt the exposed organs with only a layer of skin over them. He could feel the chunks of spine, unlined and array.

X couldn’t help his reflexes’ pulling him back and making him gag. How had he not felt that before? How was Grian still alive, still moving? What happened? How had skin not broken? So many questions fill X’s head, he forgot for a second how it felt. He almost threw up again.

Grian turned onto his side again as if he was only a little uncomfortable. X stood perfectly still. He had to find someone who could fix this.

He zipped out of the tower and to Stresses base, hoping she’d be there. Xisuma saw she brightly colored base and flew down to her. She was working on a build filled with as much life as everything around it. Against his normal coolness, he crashed besides her, landing on his face. Stress jumped back.

“Oh, Xisuma, are you alright?” She said, looking over him. He stood up and looked down at her.

“Could I maybe get a few health potions, splash.” He said, pulling diamonds out of his inventory. Stress smiled nervously and pulled out some potions.

“Silly, remember, you have a membership!” She laughed, furrowing her eye brows and handing him the bottles. X gave her a rushed smile and zoomed off.

He got back to his base as fast as he could, unbeknownst to him, catching the attention of Etho. He rushed to Grian and splashed the potion on him, avoiding his back. Grian squirmed a bit, but remained asleep. Xisuma sighed and lifted the back of his sweater again. No change he could see. Maybe the spine fragments had relined…

“Hey dude, are you okay? Is Grian okay?” Etho said, stepping closer to the two. Xisuma stood up and turned to Etho.

“If I’m honest, I don’t know.” He said, looking back at Grian. “Come look at this.” X led Etho over to Grian. X leaned over and slowly lifted the teal sweater. Etho covered his mouth.

“DUDE!” Etho yelled. X covered his mouth. Grian shifted. “How is he still alive?!” Etho whispered.

“You think I know?!” X responded. Etho gulped. The builder shifted uncomfortably in his bed. He twisted around and flipped onto his back. Xisuma and Etho jumped back as Grian let out an agonizing scream. X ran over to his friend, but just as he was going to grab him, he opened his eyes and what looked like the Void shot out of his eyes.

It was like all of the light got sucked out of the world. The sky turned to void, torches and fires extinguished, and no one in the world could see five blocks in front of them. All mobs stopped in their tracks and wind held still. Everyone could hear the scream.

Grian’s scream turned to a sob as he closed his eyes. Light and life returned to Hermitcraft in a shock wave. Etho and Xisuma were pushed out of the tower and they both landed on a tree underneath. X looked up, dizzy. His vision was foggy, but he could make out someone flying from the tower. But they were not wearing elytra.

The wings were the teal of Grian’s sweater and were made of dust. The dust floated down over Etho and Xisuma. The two hermits looked at each other to make sure they saw the same thing.

“What in the world?” Etho coughed the dust up. X sat up and looked into the sky to try and find the person. He shot into the tower and looked for Grian. Nothing.  
The bed was covered in the dust that the wings were made of. Etho ran over to him and looked.

“Something’s wrong with G,” Etho said. Xisuma nodded, eyes wide. He coughed. Etho looked up at him.

“It got through my filter…” Xisuma said, shaking slightly. Etho coughed to, wheezing.

“It’s hard to breathe!” Etho coughed. X nodded, suddenly coughing as well. The dust floated around the room. X grabbed Etho arm, still coughing, and pulled him out. They flew over to an open space and coughed the rest of the dust out. As Etho wiped off his mouth, Xisuma noticed that it was a bit harder to breath out of his mask. Not by much, so he didn’t say anything. Instead, he looked up at the tower they were in. Slowly, the beacon turned from the bright orange to the dark teal of the dust.

Etho looked up and gawked as well. There wasn’t supposed to be glass colored like that. Suddenly, the lights switched off. But instead of just turning off, the room seemed to absorb light.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Bdubs and Iskall shot glares at each other, a mix of anger and betrayal. Iskall mouthed to him, when Mumbo and Scar broke away, “Grian’s an abomination?” Bdubs looked away and down. He walked closer.

“Iskall, we… We have to do something! He’s dangerous. If he hasn’t now, Grian will lose his control!” Bdubs whisper-yelled. Iskall rubbed his face, worry covering every inch. His face narrowed.

“We can’t let him stay here! He’ll hurt everyone!” Iskall said, suddenly feeling very ill. He stumbled a little and took deep breaths. Bdubs coughed, small, dusty particles came from his mouth. They looked at each other, half scared half mad. “We need to find the stone. He must’ve had it.” They broke off and started looking around the mansion.

Bdubs looked around the perimeter of the unfinished mansion. He flew up onto one of the towers that was left where some unlit TNT lay. Bdubs got a sick feeling in his stomach as he thought about what happened.

Scar walked over to the large dent where they had found Grian. He jumped down when he saw something shine. He lifted a rock up and inspected it. It was the same dark teal that Grian was wearing and it seemed to have split down the middle. He tossed it in the air a couple of inches and slipped it into his pocket.

Iskall looked around the hall of the mansion and looked up at a map of the jungle made around the beginning of the season. The jungle was a lot thicker back then then it was now. His tree was hardly a stump and Mumbo’s base was just a frame. He shivered as he looked to the only part of the map that was destroyed. Grian’s mansion. Looking down the hall, every map had the part with Grian’s base deliberately removed.

Mumbo looked around the villager trading hall trying to look for clues. Chickens ran around aimlessly, and pillars of debris stacked up to what would be the ceiling. Rays of sun light shone down, reflecting off of teal sparkles that floated about, making the room look enchanting and magical.

That’s when the sky turned to void. The small fires that scattered the site disappeared and torches and lanterns went out. The darkness was suffocating and the scream they heard made their blood curdle.

And as suddenly as it came it went, leaving everything as it was.

Mumbo looked around to see no chickens anywhere, just feathers.

Iskall jumped back to see the maps completed but without the mansion entirely.

Scar looked around and saw that the craters around the mansion were all gone.

Bdubs saw a figure with large wings fly right over his head spreading dust over him.

He swallowed the dust and coughed violently. His throat burnt and he fell to his knees. Bdubs was on the edge of the tower and fell off. He coughed and tried to equip his elytra, but he couldn’t. He tried to scream but the dust stopped him. He coughed again, to see blood start to fall with him. His eyes widened with fear and he waited for the inevitable. It never came. He started to see the void surround him again. And he fell. And fell. And fell.

When he finally hit the ground, Bdubs’ vision was blurry and his throat itched. He put his hand to his mouth and lifted it back up. Blood. His stomach turned. Blood. His vision faded. Blood. He could hardly hear his friends. Blood. He lost consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new years!!! Thank you every one for the support! I didn't expect to see so many people actually read this and I'm glad some are excited for more!!  
> I forgot to mention, also read The Parting Glass by Sekrap. They did Trickster and The Parting Glass is the best thing I have ever read!  
> Have a good new year, hope it goes better then 2020!


	3. Tower of Lies

Scar started pacing in the small house. Mumbo leaned over Bdubs and wiped his mouth off. Iskall looked out the window.

“You guys saw that?” Scar asked. Mumbo nodded, knowing whatever he was really talking about was on the list Mumbo had. “Will Bdubs be okay…?”

Iskall looked back at the two. “That looks like...” He said quietly then stopped himself. The fear in his eyes grew. Mumbo froze looking at Bdubs. His face was pale. Scar paced faster.

“Oh no, oh no, no!” Scar cried putting his hands on his head. “That came out of nowhere!” Mumbo stood up.

“Xisuma can probably help us! Potion would do something, right?” He said. Iskall sighed and walked over to them.

“Maybe…”

They all stood in silence with Scar pacing around the room. A knock at the door startled all of them. Mumbo opened it up and looked at Doc who was standing in the door.

“Is Bdubs home?” He asked, looking past at Iskall. Scar was still pacing.

“He’s asleep.” Mumbo said without thinking.

“In the middle of the day?” He laughed. Mumbo let out a nervous laugh. Doc stepped in and looked at Scar. “Grian’s not here, is he?” He asked. Scar froze. Doc walked into the back of the house. He jumped back

“Holy!” He said looking down at Bdubs. The other three looked over his shoulder. Bdubs eyes were wide open and blood dripped out of his mouth. Teal dust floated out of his mouth as he breathed. If he wasn’t breathing, they’d be sure he was dead. Mumbo slid down and wiped off his face.

“BDUBS!?” Scar yelled. Bdubs coughed and blood and dust came out. He closed his eyes tight and tears fell from his eyes.

“What in the **** happened!?” Doc asked Iskall. He stepped back.

“Um, we have no idea! Blame Grian I guess!” Iskall yelled back, suddenly losing his temper. He stepped back and looked away.

“What does Grian have to do with this?” Doc asked, looking Iskall up and down. Mumbo and Scar looked over at them.

“Who else would have blown up his mansion?” Iskall spat back, teal partials coming out of his mouth. Doc stepped back. Mumbo’s eyes went wide.

“Iskall…”

“WHAT!?” He yelled at his friend. His mechanical eye turned teal for a second. Dust flew from his mouth. Mumbo grabbed Iskall and looked at him.

“Iskall!” He yelled. Iskall snapped out of his rage and looked at Mumbo. His mechanical eyes returned to its lime green color. He took a deep breath before feeling extremely lightheaded.

“Hey, dude, you okay?” Mumbo asked. Iskall nodded slowly. It made him dizzy. His vision went in and out. His stomach and head seemed to twist and turn. He leaned on Mumbo Doc and Scar met Mumbo’s eyes. Scar knelt and cleaned Bdubs’ face.

“What in holy heck is going on?” Doc asked again. Scar stood up and dusted off his suit.

“It’s a long story… and we don’t even know the half of it.”

Doc and Scar sat at a table with Mumbo and Iskall. Iskall stayed leaning against Mumbo.

“Okay.” Scar started. “I, Bdubs, Mumbo, Iskall, Stress, and Xisuma found Grian’s mansion blown up. Completely destroyed. Grian was in front of it in a ditch with a dark teal sweater. X took him to his towers while we looked around the mansion. Then, that thing happened. Did you see it?” Doc looked at him

“When everything just stopped and turned to pitch darkness? Yep.”

“Okay, well, then Bdubs fell off a tower and we brought him back. That’s basically it.”

Doc cocked his head, opening his mouth several times to speak but just didn’t. Iskall had fallen asleep on Mumbo and the redstoner nodded to approve Scar’s story.

“We don’t have any idea of who blew it up!” Mumbo added. Scar shook his head.

“Well, yeah, a couple.” Doc looked at him. “Stress and Xisuma were just right there with a health potion!” Mumbo scowled

“Um, then what is your and Bdubs’ excuse for being anywhere near Grian’s base? Hmmm?” Doc stood up.

“Hold on you two. Stop blaming everyone!” He said.

“Hmm, you don’t like Grian very much and when have you ever not wanted to blame someone?” Scar said, standing up. Mumbo stood up too, shoving Iskall off of him.

“Yeah, that’s rich coming from HEP’s leader!”

“And that’s rich coming from the resistance leader!!”

“Resistance leader? Are you daft??”

Doc sat down and rubbed his face. Iskall slowly pulled himself up and looked at the argument and then to Doc. Scar looked down at him.

“And what about him? He got all angry and said to blame Grian.” Mumbo looked down at his friend. “And his eye turned the same color as that dust stuff!!!” Scar crossed his arms, proud of his argument. Mumbo picked up Iskall like a cat.

“Don’t you dare excuse him! He was right there when the house blew up!” Mumbo whined.

“Ha, how in the world did you know that?” Scar yelled.

“Would ya’ll shut up!” A voice said coming from the other side of the house. They turned to see Bdubs leaning in the doorway. He was holding a handkerchief to his mouth.

“You’re okay!” Iskall said, breaking free of Mumbo and running over to Bdubs.

“Well of course I am!” He said, punctuating with a cough. Scar and Doc ran over.

“Oh you poor thing!” Scar said, petting his head. Bdubs walked away from him. Doc sighed a breath of relief.

“BdoubleO, tell these idiots that they need to stop accusing each other. They haven’t even heard Grian’s side of the story yet. They’re just jumping to conclusions!” Doc said.

“It was Grian’s own fault.” Bdubs said flatly. Doc face palmed. As Doc was about to speak again, the communicators went off. Doc looked to see a call for Hermits to meet in the shopping district.

“X needs us in the shopping district. Let’s save the arguing for later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just kidding, I'm going to update when I feel like it.  
> Hope you don't mind :)


	4. The Truth Spells Out Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot I didn't have school today so this a celebratory chapter :)  
> A couple people say they have no idea what going on...  
> Good :)

Xisuma and Etho sat in the shopping District waiting for the hermits to arrive. Slowly they all came, until the rest came in one party. Doc was leading them and it looked like they had talked to him about what happened. But Grian wasn’t there. X and Etho stood in front of town hall and looked at all the hermits.

“So, this is kinda’ strange to call you here so urgently.” X started, looking at Etho who nodded. “Something very strange happened, and we are not just talking about, Etho and I have called it, The Blackout. Grian’s mansion was…” X didn’t ever want to say this on his server. “Griefed.” The crown sounded shocked other than the ones who already knew. They continuously gave each other dirty looks. Seeing this, Etho stepped up.

“We encourage you to not, I repeat, do not start blaming others! We haven’t gotten a chance to speak with Grian and who knows, this could all just be a prank!” Etho looked onto the crowd who didn’t seem to buy anything.

“It’s not a prank.” A voice called from on top of the town hall. Grian sat with his dark teal shirt and looked down at them. X held in a gasp. Grian flew down with his elytra.

“You okay there buddy?” Ren asked, worried. Grian gave a fake smile.

“Peachy.” He stepped besides X and looked at his friends. “This is not a prank; I blew the mansion up.” He declared. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. X and Etho looked at him, startled. Grian looked tired, almost sick. His skin was sickly, eyes were red. “I-” He stopped himself and closed his eyes. “I… It was... It doesn’t really matter. I’ll just rebuild it, it’s really nothing to worry about.” He said as he looked at Etho and Xisuma. Grian really looked like he had been crying. It was obvious.

“We’ll help you build it again! We can get you the materials.” Impulse said, walking forward.

“No, no, it’s really fine. I’ll just get the stuff myself.” Grian said, putting his hands up. Cleo shook her head.

“Grian, honey, we’ll help you!” She put her hands on her waist. Grian closed his eyes. He should’ve assumed this would happen. He sighed.

“Thanks, I really appreciate the offer, but I did this and I should take care of my own mistakes. I got upset and it blew up in my face, literally.” He sighed. “I’m not going to refuse you guys’ help, but I want you to know you don’t have to.” Xisuma put a hand on Grian’s shoulder. He didn’t have the slightest idea what happened, but he was proud of Grian for being mature about it. Even though he felt like Grian wasn’t telling the whole truth.

In the back of the crowd, Mumbo, Iskall, Doc, Scar, and Bdubs stood looking up at Grian. Doc looked at Mumbo with narrowed eyes.

“We’ll go talk to him.” Mumbo confirmed. Doc nodded. Iskall scoffed.

“Why would you want to do that?” He asked. Doc looked back and scowled. Xisuma patted Grian on the back and looked back over the crowd.

“You can all go back to your work, and I guess we don’t need to be worried about any griefing!” He announced and the crowd started to disperse, a couple of people going to talk to Grian, X, and Etho before leaving. Mumbo, Doc, and Scar started walking towards town hall, Iskall and Bdubs lagging behind. They walked up to Grian. X and Etho had already left. Grian sighed to himself and looked up at his friends.

“Sup guys.” He said lethargically. Mumbo cocked his head.

“Are you okay?” He asked. Grian laughed.

“Should I tell the truth?”

“Yes.” Doc said. Scar shoved Doc a bit. Grian turned from them and stretched his back. It made an awful popping noise. Grian winces.

“Sorry…” He groans. Mumbo smirked

“About what?” He asked, elbowing Grian. Grian smiled back.

“Look, I just don’t feel like myself, I-” He stopped and took and deep breath and rolled his shoulders. He looked like he was trying to hide pain. He blinked away tears. Mumbo grabbed his shoulders and looked him dead in the eyes.

“Grian, you can talk to us.” He said, not smiling. Doc and Scar nodded. 

“Yeah, but do we really want him to?” Iskall huffed.

“ISKALL!” All but Bdubs and Grian yelled. Iskall put his hands up casually as if he did nothing wrong. Clouds gathered overhead. Thunder rumbled in the distance and Grian looked at his friends. Iskall’s words cut deep. Is that really what he thought of him?

“Don’t pay attention to him, dude.” Doc said, reaching to grab Grian’s shoulder. Grian pulled away quickly. Doc stepped back, concerned. Scar told Iskall and Bdubs to leave and they did not hesitate, Iskall scoffing on his way out. Scar walked up to him, standing beside Mumbo. When he got closer, Grian’s back stopped aching as bad. He sighed, feeling calmer.

“Just tell us what happened. I know it’s not really important now because you’ve already blown up your mansion, but maybe you’ll feel better.” Mumbo said, looking his friend in the eye. Grian sighed. He thought very carefully about what he’d said.

“I’m not the great builder you think I am.” He said. Just saying that made him begin to panic. “I-I-I blew up the mansion because I felt guilty, it was- it- it wasn’t really my work…” He closed his eyes and hoped this was a dream.

“How?” Mumbo asked. Nope, not a dream. “Me and Iskall and countless others have seen you slave away at that base, you’ve spent days and nights just working on that thing!”

“Dude, most everyone here has seen you building that, and Xisuma would know if something was being stolen.” Doc confirmed. Scar nodded vigorously.

“Remember, I helped you build the cliffs outside, there is no way that’s not yours.”

Grian held his breath and closed his eyes tighter. How in the world was he supposed to explain this? He shook his head. What else could he do?

“You guys don’t understand. I’m not-” He took a deep breath. “I’m not a great builder and I never will be.” 

“Grian, you’re one of the best builders I know! You can do amazing things, and that mansion was probably only half of what you can do!” Mumbo scoffed.

“No I’m not, I don’t know how to explain it…” He said, defeated. Doc stepped forward.

“I know how.”

The old biome stood devoid of the gravel that used to cover it. Doc stood with his pickaxe on a beacon and looked at the hermits that stood below. Some looked a bit inpatient.

“Sorry, I know it’s weird having two meetings in the same day,” Doc started. He looked at Grian with a devious smile. Grian backed up, trying to hide. “But, we are going to do something fun. As a server activity, I thought it would be fun to have a good, old fashioned, build battle.” Grian froze.

Doc couldn’t help but laugh to himself. What other way could he prove to Grian that he was a great builder? It was the perfect excuse to hang with his friends and prove that Grian wasn’t as bad as he for some reason thought he was.

“I’ll be the judge!” Doc added. “The rules are simple, build something better than everyone else here! 3… 2… 1… BEGIN!” Doc fired an arrow in the air and everyone stood around for a second before accepting this was what they were doing that day. All the hermits went to a corner of the ravaged biome. Grian stood petrified. Why in the world would Doc do this in front of the whole server? Slowly, he pulled out a few blocks and looked at them. He could hardly remember anything. He held a couple cool-gray blocks, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember the names. Grian heart rate and breathing quicken. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself.

Doc, Mumbo, and Scar watched Grian’s silent break down. Iskall and Bdubs also saw. Iskall, on his way to pick up more materials, ‘accidentally’ knocked Grian over. Mumbo was about to walk over when Grian got up and shot off into the sky with his elytra.

“Fu-” Doc started when Iskall reached them. He watched Grian fly away.

“What’s up with him?” He asked. Mumbo crossed his arms and cocked his head, looking annoyed. Iskall’s eyes narrowed. “What?” He asked as if he did nothing wrong. Doc was the first to fly after Grian. False and Joe watched him fly off.

“How in the world is he supposed to judge from over there?” Joe asked. False shook her head.

Doc followed Grian’s insane flying as best he could, hitting a couple trees on his way. After quite a bit of flying, Grian finally landed on a cliff. They had to be thousands of blocks away by now. Doc landed quietly, looking over some snow to see his friend. Grian’s wings looked broken, and under them it looked like dark dust was falling from beneath. The dust seemed to glimmer in the light, bouncing off the snow and reflecting a deep teal. It was mesmerizing. But not when Grian started crying. Doc jumped back a little. He didn’t think he had ever heard Grian cry. He slowly stood up and tried to walk closer to Grian. He walked slowly, making as little sound as possible. He didn’t want to scare him away.

“G, dude?” Doc asked quietly. Grian looked up and quickly turned to the creeper. He jumped back, going closer to the edge of the cliff. Doc stood extremely still. Grian’s elytra was broken, he’d die if he fell. Doc stepped back. “Grian, it’s okay.” He said again, calmly. Grian was shaking and tears rolled down his face.

“I-I told you…” Grian said quietly. “I’m not what you think I am.” Doc put his hands up in defeat.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you out there.” Doc addressed his failure. “I’m really sorry. I just wanted to prove to you that you are so much better than you think you are.” Grian shook with fear, wanted to step off the cliff and take the damage. How in the world would he make them believe that he didn’t know what he was doing?

“Doc,” He whispered. “I have no idea what I’m doing.” His voice shook as more tears came from his eyes. Doc stepped closer very carefully. Grian fell forward into Doc, wrapping his arms around him. Doc grabbed him and bent down a little.

“Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay.” He petted Grian’s fluffy brown hair and let him cry. Grian and he were never close, but it seemed like Grian just needed someone. Anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the support, I had no idea that people would actually like this!  
> I was head over heels when one person left kudos, and now what? 28? it's incredible!  
> Good luck to those going back to school after Christmas!  
> Have a good day!


	5. Thin Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad people like this :)  
> I stayed up till 2 am and almost fell asleep in class :)  
> Bone app the teeth :)

Iskall scoffed as Mumbo and Scar headed off in the direction of Doc. Bdubs laughed.

“You know, Grian will be unlucky if they find him.” Bdubs smiled. Iskall rolled his eyes.

“I kinda feel bad for him.”

“I guess so.” The two hermits watched other hermits leave the area, a little fed up with the interruptions. Iskall looked at Bdubs.

“Do you think this is really a good idea” He asked. Bdubs nodded.

“Grian’s dangerous, it’s only a matter of time before he does something really stupid and hurts a bunch of people.” Bdubs responded, coughing. Iskall hung his head down.

“I really don’t feel well. How in the world did you get through this?” Iskall put a hand on Bdubs shoulder to steady himself.

“Used a lot of health potions. It kept the symptoms down enough. I really forgot how bad it gets though.” He said, coughing again. They looked to the sky where Grian flew off to. “You have a point. It kinda feels wrong trying to get rid of him. It’s for the best, we need to remember that.”

“I guess we just need to paint a bad picture of him.” Iskall reasoned. Bdubs nodded.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After what felt like ages, Mumbo and Scar finally saw Doc and Grian. They were sitting on a cliff. Mumbo and Scar landed carefully and walked up to their friends.

“Hey, are you guys okay?” Mumbo asked, kneeling beside Grian. Grian covered his face with his hands and curdled up. Doc shook his head slightly. Scar knelt down in front of Grian.

“Hey, buddy, what’s going on?” He asked quietly. Doc shook his head again.

“He-” Doc stopped to think of what to say. He needed to tell Mumbo and Scar. “Grian, can I tell them what’s up?” He asked. Grian hesitantly nodded. Doc sighed. “It’s hard to explain. Just hear me out.”

“Grian is half human,” He looked to see if they followed. “Half creature called an observer worker. His dad, the observer worker, was killed for failing in love with a human, and because the… Worker Chief?” Grian nodded. “He didn’t like a human messing up the ‘perfect worker DNA’. Grian was banished as an example to tell other observer workers not to ‘mess up the genes’.” Doc stopped again to look at Scar and Mumbo’s faces. They didn’t seem to understand entirely, but were following for the most part. He continued. “Grian was banished because he was born with the inability to develop skills and interests.” Grian put his face into his legs. His friends would think he was crazy. They’d ban him or something. They had to, he didn’t belong here.

“Then, what about his builds?” Scar asked. “We all know he can build. So if he can’t, what are we seeing?” Doc looked at Grian.

“He was using a stone that gave him the abilities he couldn’t have, and slowly learned to thrive like everyone else, but…” Doc looked at Grian. “It broke and he got frustrated. That’s why he blew the mansion up. He felt like it wasn’t his work” Grian tried to curl up more on to himself. Mumbo rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Scar pulled the rock he found out of his pocket. It glimmered like the dust that Bdubs had coughed up.

“Grian, buddy, it’s going to be okay.” Mumbo said. Doc nodded and squeezed Grian’s shoulders. Scar handed Grian the rock.

“Is this it?” He asked. Grian slowly looked up and saw it. He grabbed it quickly and Scar jumped back. Grian held it to his face. His breathing started to calm down.

“Thank you” He whispered. Grian moved the rock in his hand and felt the jagged, broken edge. His stomach emptied into a void and he put his face in his hands again, trying not to cry.

“Grian, you’re okay, you can cry…” Scar said, sitting down in front of Grian.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re telling me Grian hacks?” Xisuma said, looking skeptically at Bdubs and Iskall. They nodded. “Grian? The guy you can’t do redstone if his life depended on it?”

“I know how weird that sounds, but we have proof!” Bdubs said, pointing his finger. Iskall nodded. Xisuma rubbed his mask like it was his face.

“That’s a really big claim.” X continued. “Listen, I would be able to see any commands that are entered into the log.”

“We know, that’s why we are going to show you video evidence, not only of him hacking, but griefing!” Iskall said, pulling something up on his communicator.

“It’s been an incredibly long week and its only Tuesday. Pranks like this aren’t what I need right now.” X sighed. Iskall lifted the screen to show X. Xisuma narrowed his eyes at what he saw. Bdubs held his nervousness. Iskall started shaking and wobbling and X grabbed his arm to hold it still, shocked by what he saw. Bdubs coughed out blood and dust.

“No…” Xisuma didn’t believe it. He let go of Iskall, letting him fall. X put a hand on his chin. It moved up to cover his mask where his mouth would be. Despite their status, Iskall and Bdubs smiled. “I don’t…” He looked at his friends. “I will talk to him.” He said, walking away. Quickly the two got up.

“Oh and look who’s right on time!” Bdubs said pointing into the sky at a group of people flying back to the destroyed biome. Iskall felt terrible.

At this point, most hermits left due to more pressing matters at their own projects. The group of hermits landed and Xisuma walked over to them. Iskall and Bdubs flew over behind a rock to listen in.

“Grian.” Xisuma addressed them. Grian looked at the admin. He took a deep breath. “I was shown some pretty incriminating footage of you.”

“What do you mean?” Mumbo asked. X cleared his throat.

“I- I never wanted to say this to anyone one on this server, but it’s pretty important that I address this with you…” He looked at the group of hermits. “Alone.” They slowly left the two alone, hiding behind a couple trees just out of view. “Grian, I have evidence of you hacking and griefing. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was very clear. It was from maybe early this season and I really hope you don’t do things like that again. Grian, you’re a great friend, but if you keep that up, I’ll have to ban you.” Grian felt his heart sink. He scoffed.

“Xisuma, I never did anything like that! I don’t even know how to use an observer, let alone a command block!” Grian felt his eyes start to wet. He felt himself starting to get angry.

“Grian, I understand you want to defend yourself, but this is just a warning. Trust me, if I wasn’t shown that video I wouldn’t be here. This is just for safety reasons. I don’t want it to be true and I’m hoping it was just a bad day or something.” X rubbed the back of his neck. “I want to keep this to ourselves. How you’ve been acting with the resistance and the mansion, I’m getting worried. I don’t want anyone to get hurt, that’s all. I want this server to be safe. Have a good day.” X flew off and Grian stood silent. He didn’t understand what had happened. He laughed to himself. He ran his hand through his hair and started pacing. He looked down at his blue sweater. Was it still even Tuesday? Was it even season seven anymore? Grian tried to make sense of his life.

Mumbo looked at Doc and Scar. They’re eyes were wide. Doc open his mouth to say something but closed it.

Bdubs and Iskall looked at each other, Bdubs cracking smile. They got up quickly and flew away. Mumbo saw them and pulled Scar and Doc into the air to follow them. They flew off after them. Grian closed his eyes and tried to think.

After a while, Grian started flying back to his base, not using the nether portal and taking the scenic route. He flew pretty close to the treetops, not really looking where he was going. He didn’t do anything! Who had shone X the ‘incriminating footage’, and where did they get it? X didn’t even show it to him. Grian let his hand touch the soft leaves as he slowed down. Mumbo gave him an extra elytra and it felt kinda wrong to use it like this. He slowly took the elytra from behind his back. The dust flew away in the wind as he glided on top of the forests. The dust was shaped like wings. They glimmered in the light, making mesmerizing patterns on the trees below. Grian felt his stomach churn. The sky began to get dark and his wings almost disappeared without the light. The builder closed his eyes and let his wings fly. He hadn’t realized how tired he was until his back started hurting. The pain was paralyzing and for once he was thankful for the wings. He took out the half stone and rolled it around in his hands. The other half was out there somewhere. This one half wasn’t enough to stop his back from hurting and it only allowed his some of his skills. His brain felt fuzzy as he tried to think about building. He pulled a random block from his inventory and looked at it. Its smooth nature was almost alien to him. It was dark grey with little detail. It made his head hurt.

He eventually made it back to his mansion, his back sore and his head spinning. Grian was met with an overwhelming sense of disappointment when he saw the mansion again. He forgot he did that.

He could feel himself getting sick as a result of his poor health he’s had since age five. Having only half of the stone was worse than he remembered. It made him feel so aggravated. Grian walked into the bottom of his mansion and flopped down on his bed he tucked his wings into his back. He tossed his sweater and button up off. Grian rolled on to his stomach and went to sleep.


	6. Cold Feet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for gore

It was early in the morning when Xisuma showed up at Grian’s door. Mumbo and Scar followed just out of view when they saw him. They knew there were only a few reasons X would come before dawn to talk to the builder. It kinda scared them. When Mumbo, Doc, and Scar followed Bdubs and Iskall into the nether where they lost them, they were sure that Bdubs and Iskall showed Xisuma the video. They seemed so… scared?

X started to walk down the hall and looked up at all of the maps that lined the wall. They all looked normal apart from the absence of Grian’s mansion. Even though X should have seen it as more proof of what he’s confirmed, he felt uncomfortable. He couldn’t help but almost fear talking to Grian. He heard what sounded like pistons firing and he jumped into the air and looked around. He took a deep breath when nothing seemed to move.

But then, the floor disappeared from under him. He fell faster than he could pull out his elytra and X hit the cold stone at the bottom. He couldn’t have been far from death.  
That was the last straw.

X clumsily ate and slowly regained his strength. He took an elytra and shot into the air, landing gracefully on the gray and brown carpet. Mumbo and Scar broke their secrecy and ran up to Xisuma.

“X!” Scar said. He turned, a face half angry and half disappointed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“How likely is it that someone trapped Grian’s mansion… and he was able to make it passed?” He asked, turning with his hands behind his back. “I saw Grian a few hours ago, in the shopping district. I can’t deny what I saw, and this trap.” He took another deep breath. He turned to Mumbo and Scar. “Please tell me you saw Grian then? I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to believe this.” He started pacing and put his hands on his head. He looked at them. They shook their heads slowly. X calmed himself down and looked into the hall. Dust floated in the air as the three headed into the room. Mumbo and Scar felt the same uncertainty that X had felt.

They walked up to Grian who was asleep. They all stopped when they saw his back. Broken, bruised. Scar gagged. The skin was torn in the middle and they could see muscle and bone. The hermits stepped back. They stood silent and still. How was he alive? He was breathing. They could see the lungs move up and down under the layer of skin. His heart was beating. The rhythmic pumping was noticeable from that angle. He wasn’t paralyzed. He moved the pillow underneath himself.

Xisuma remembered this from when they first found Grian. But it looked more defined than it did before, like it had gotten worse. X remembered how uncomfortable Grian looked a couple days ago. He was constantly readjusting himself, rolling his shoulders around, and stretching his back. When had it gotten that bad? Xisuma couldn’t ban him in this condition. The Void wouldn’t be nice at all to someone in that condition. But he saw what Grian could do. The night before he saw Grian in the shopping district, Iskall showed him a video of Grian in season six. Not even to mention the trap in the front of his house. The evidence was overwhelming. But he didn’t want to believe it. Scar covered his mouth and looked away. Mumbo couldn’t help but stare. They all stood motionless.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Grian turned in his bed, welcomed by the light of a new morning. He had gotten a good sleep and was feeling okay. He still felt sick, but less so. He rolled onto his back and yawned. He sat up and opened his eyes.

Swiftly he pulled his sweater over his head and stood up, causing him too much pain. He struggled to stay up right. His sweater was on backwards and it hung unevenly, hanging off one of his shoulders.

“WHAT THE-” Grian stopped himself. “Why are you here?!” He yelled, angrier than he meant. Mumbo stepped back. Grian took deep breaths, unable to find the breath to say anything more. Or enough to stay conscious. He fell backward and landed on the stairs leading down to the villagers.

“GRIAN?!” Mumbo yelled. He started to run over when Grian’s eyes opened and let out the void. He screamed in pain. All light disappeared and all fire extinguished suddenly. The air was perfectly still and no one could see anything. Everyone could hear the scream

And just as fast as it had gone, everything came back, pushing out from Grian, knocking the three hermits back. Grian started taking in long, shallow breaths and wrapped his arms around his chest. The pain covered his entire body and it was horrifying. He could feel everything and it all hurt. His back, though, was numb. For once in his life, Grian didn’t feel the pain.

“Oh, no, no, no…” Mumbo yelled, running and picking up Grian. It hurt and Grian let out a small yelp. Blood covered Mumbo’s hands and arms. He could feel his friend’s heart beating and his lungs breathing. Mumbo used all of his strength to hold in puke. “X! GET A HEALTH POTION!” Mumbo yelled, overcome with panic. Scar started pacing and X flew swiftly out. Scar ran his hand through his hair and grabbed his head. Grian’s face strained.

“You’re gonna be okay!” Mumbo said to the builder. He didn’t notice, but tears filled his eyes. He heard Scar sniffling. Scar was muttering something when he bent over and threw up. X came back and splashed a potion on Grian and soon as he was in range.

Grian felt some of the pain ease and he took a few deep breaths. He could hear his friends yelling, but didn’t understand what they were saying. The last time this happened, the pain wasn’t nearly as bad and he could feel his back. Grian let his mind wander as he floated in and out of consciousness. What were X, Mumbo, and Scar doing there? It felt really awkward seeing them there. He knew they felt the same. Like, give a guy some alone time! Even more so at, what, five in the morning? The aching in Grian’s head forced him out of his dream-like state and forced his eyes open. He saw Mumbo leaning over him. His eyes were blurry and he could hardly make out who was above him.

“Grian? Grian?!” Mumbo’s voice began to clear in Grian’s head. He took a deep breath. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Though simple, Grian couldn’t seem to answer the questions.  
“I-I’m fine…” He muttered. His blood was still boiling from them just showing up. Thought blurry, Grian could see Mumbo’s face screw up. His body felt sore and his head ached, but it almost felt good. He laughed, letting the world around him fade. He stood up, the echoes of his friends yelled and questions were merely a whisper. He let his dust wings spread and opened his eyes.

The whole world was tinted teal and his friends’ faces were dark, he couldn’t make them out. Mumbo ran up and grabbed his shoulders, yelling something. Grian smiled. He looked down at his hands ignoring Mumbo. Grian took a deep breath. His hands had symbols on them, strange worlds and letters he almost recognized. Even though he couldn’t tell what the individual symbols meant, he could read the whole word.

‘ABOMINATION’

Grian still felt calm though. He already knew this. He forced the wings into his back and closed his eyes. He started to hear his friends more clearly and dreaded having to explain this to them. He chose to ignore the questions and shouts. He didn’t want to prove the workers right. He wasn’t an Abomination. He took a deep breath and looked at his friends. The world returned to its colorful self and Grian sighed in relief. Then the dread came back.

“Grian what’s going on?” Mumbo said, panicked. Grian sighed and looked at him. He wanted to be mature and face this, but he couldn’t. He took out his elytra and flew away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but whatever.  
> They all looked longer on word.  
> Have a good day :)


	7. Ice Gets Thinner

It took a few minutes for Scar to calm down and X and Mumbo stayed with him. Whatever had just happened with Grian went above all of their heads. Xisuma started pacing. What was he supposed to do? He knew he should ban Grian. All the things he’s been shown and now this? How in the world was he not supposed to? But X also knew that he should sit down and talk with Grian, get his side on everything. The evidence was irrefutable, but maybe they could work and figure out why he was doing all of this. It’s better to find the problem and fix it rather than jumping to punishment. He’d let Grian calm down. X decided he’d wait till lunch and talk to him then.

Mumbo, on the other hand, was petrified. He felt himself get dizzy every time he looked down at his hands. He remembered that feeling of organs pumping and the sight of blood everywhere. The warmth, the life. Mumbo closed his eyes and tried to forget. Questions and ideas flooded his mind, so he tried to organize his mind. He sorted his questions. What happened? The first one stumped him and he knew Grian was the only one who could answer that. How is he alive? The second question was just as puzzling. It made the feeling come back to his hands. He shook it away. Was Xisuma going to ban him now? Every question that he asked himself made himself panic more. He took a few deep breaths and tried to think of what he _did_ know. He knew that Grian wasn’t exactly human and he can’t develop skills and relationships. That explains the mansion blowing up and Grian’s sudden change in behavior. Mumbo thought about how vulnerable Grian was behaving. It really wasn’t like him. Mumbo also noted how strange Bdubs and Iskall were acting. Not _out_ of character, rude and snarky, but more so. It wasn't out of the ordinary for them, except they were working against Grian. Why did they want him banned?

Scar sat against a wall trying to gather his thoughts without bringing the images back. Why did he keep looking? What kind of idea was that? Now he’s ruined Grian’s lovely carpet. Grian. What happened? How was he alive? The last question stuck in his mind. How? It made no logical sense! Scar looked up at the maps that adorned the walls. They looked wrong. Not because the mansion was gone, but because a teal haze covered them. They seemed to keep changing. He noted when they first came in what they looked like. Scar looked over at X and Mumbo, they looked just as confused and worried as he did. Whatever just happened was horrifying and Scar just wanted to wake up in his bed as if it had all been a nightmare.

* * *

Impulse walked with Tango through the shopping district. The server felt super uneasy, but they couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. Maybe it was the situation with Grian’s mansion?

“Hey, have you seen Bdubs today?” Tango asked, stopping in front of the barge. Impulse shook his head.

“No, it’s weird, I saw him yesterday talking to X with Iskall, but he disappeared after that.” Impulse looked into the barge. They saw Grian stocking his shop. “Maybe G’s seen him?” The Boomers walked over to the builder. He didn’t turn to them. Impulse noticed a stain on the back of his… teal sweater?

“Hey, Grian!” Tango greeted. Grian jumped and turned to them. He looked tired, but mad, and didn’t have his normal button up on underneath.

“Oh, hey guys.” He said, looking between them. He coughed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, what can I help you with?” He forced a smile. Tango and impulse smiled back.

“We were wondering if you had seen Bdubs today.” Tango asked. Grian shook his head.

“No, I’m sorry.” He answered shortly. They nodded.

“Okay, thanks!” Impulse smiled again. He looked Grian up and down. “Are you okay?” Grian seemed to freeze at the question. It seemed he had become oblivious of his appearance.

“Long day, yesterday, you know?” He strained to laugh. Impulse and Tango nodded, not really buying the laughter. They walked out of the barge. Tango looked at his friend.

“Is it just me, or is Grian a bit off?” He asked, laughing nervously. Impulse nodded. Tango sighed. “Well I’m going to head off to Decked Out, see ya’!” Tango flew off and Impulse looked back into the barge. He saw Grian stretching and rubbing his back. Something felt so wrong. He walked away and flew off.

Soon, Impulse landed inside of the mycelium resistance base and looked around. This should do the trick. Nothing like a good prank to get things back to normal. He gathered supplies and flew back to the shopping district. He started placing mycelium all around the town hall, making sure to wear his mask. He stood back and looked at the mess he made and smiled. Shame the diamond throne had no protection. Just on cue, he heard people fly in. He hid, waiting to see the faces. He thought Scar and Bdubs would walk in, probably talking about mayoral stuff. Instead, Xisuma and Cub walked in. Impulse hid. They hardly seemed to pay any attention to the mess.

“I want to talk to him before I ban him.” X said, and Impulse froze. _Ban?_

“I’d want to too, this sounds nothing like him? You said his back was broken?” Cub responded.

“Not just broken…” X explained. “It was as if his skin was the only thing holding his organs in place! No, I think that’s what was happening…” Cub shuddered.

“This doesn’t sound right at all. Why would Iskall and Bdubs only now show you this?”

“I don’t know. I think they saw him do something and got scared. Like, if they just didn’t want to cause a fuss and decided that it wasn’t a onetime thing.” X covered his face. “I just don’t know. I want to believe Grian, but Bdubs and Iskall sounded scared. I don’t know what to do…”

Impulse hid further away. What? He tried to collect the information.

“I think I need to shut everything down for a while until I figure this out. Please send out a message to tell everyone to chill for a while. I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep this going right now.” X rubbed his face again. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Hermitcraft was supposed to be a safe server… I tried not to let this happen.”

“X, listen, Mumbo and Grian have known each other for a while now, and he said he’s never acted like this before. Something’s wrong, we just need to talk.” Cub reassured. Impulse thought about his encounter with Grian. Something was extremely wrong, but apparently it’s dangerous to the server. Impulse snuck out of town hall and back toward the barge.

He flew and landed on the roof, seeing two people approach Grian. He listened in.

“Hello, Abomination #2, funny seeing you still around!” Bdubs called. Grian jumped and looked around to see Iskall and Bdubs.

“Eighty-Five, Double O,” Grian said, looking them up and down. Bdubs laughed.

“We have names now!” Iskall said.

“I do too.” Grian scoffed back.

“No hard feelings bubby, but, you don’t really deserve one.” Bdubs snapped back. Iskall stepped in between the two. Grian looked at them.

“We were friends, why does me being an observer change that!”

“Because you are not an observer,” Bdubs started. “You are a mistake that pays the price of your _disgusting_ parents. We were your friends, I will admit it, but I will not stand to be close to anyone who is cross-bred as you are. The only reason we don’t kill you now is because you do not have shadow DNA. Remember that.”

Grian closed his eyes and tried to breathe normally. Iskall leaned against the wall and Bdubs coughed violently. Grian looked at them. He laughed a bit.

“You-you guys are dead! You’re going to die!” He snapped, letting a genuine laugh slip. Bdubs and Iskall looked at him, shocked.

“We’ll make sure X bans you! You aren’t going to hurt anyone!” Iskall spat. Bdubs coughed again. He was shaking. Grian took another step back.

“I-” Grian readied his arms as if he was about to fight them, glaring at the two. Iskall leaned against the wall again. He took out his communicator. He typed something into it.

“Once you’re gone, everyone will be safe from you, we’ll deal with this then.” Iskall said “So, as soon as X sees you, he won’t wait any longer to ban you!”

“What?!” Grian ran to him and tried to pull the communicator from him. Iskall tried to pull away. “Don’t you freaking dare!” Grian yelled. Bdubs laughed and pulled up his own communicator. He quickly typed something in. Grian let his wings out and pulled the communicator off of Iskall and threw it on the ground.

Grian had… wings made of dust?

“Don’t get too angry, Abomination, X will ban you instantly!” He sent his message as he finished. Impulse’s communicator went off and he read the message.

 _‘Grian is attacking me and Iskall at the barge! Help!’_ Impulse slid down the glass roof and tried to take steady breaths. What was that? Xisuma and Cub came flying down almost instantly. They grabbed Grian.

“What’s going on?!” Cub yelled. Iskall and Bdubs put on their best scared impression. They did very well.

“X, you don’t understand!” Grian tried to say. X sighed.

“I’ve seen enough, I wanted to talk to you, but this has gone too far.” Xisuma looked at Grian, betrayed.

“Xisuma, please!” Grian pleaded, balling his hands into fists. Tears filled his eyes. Xisuma looked at him. Something was up. He could tell.

“Let me talk to him.” X said. The other three looked at him shocked.

“X, please! He tried to kill me! He threatened to kill me and Bdubs!” Iskall said, leaning on the wall. Cub nodded. “He’s going to hurt someone!”

“Xisuma, I know you want to find the good in the situation, but this has gone too far. You need to do something, now.” Cub said. X thought about this. He was right.

“Just give me 10 minutes. I promise I won’t let this happen again.” Xisuma pulled Grian out of the barge and walked him to a secluded part of the shopping district. Impulse held his breath. What was going on?

They’re going to ban Grian?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting better at formatting these things!  
> Don't have much to say,  
> Have a good day!  
> Edit: Actually, I'm counting down the days till the 22nd because of Dead Sound! He's releasing the newest Autodale short film and it's gonna be great. I recommend to every one reading this to go watch the series. It's not very long and if you can read through a fanfic in a day, this a piece of cake to sit through.  
> Also the behind the scenes episodes are my source of inspiration on the days I'm not feeling it.  
> Please go check out Autodale by David Armsby, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ5VEKOKH8PCjZJYvjlinBtjjmKV_-dk1  
> Have a good day again!!


	8. Just Wait Till You Meet His Brother

Xisuma took Grian behind a shop and looked at him, disappointment covering his face. Grian quickly put his wings away.

“I don’t know what to say.” X started. He sounded like he was going to burst any second. “Wings? How is there a reason for that? How is there a reason you have these wings, and you didn’t just attack Bdubs and Iskall?” Grian opened his mouth and thought. X noticed his attitude.

“It’s really complicated.” He said at last. X scoffed, his cool attitude failing.

“It always is, isn’t it?” X said, raising his voice. Grian took a step back. “This server is extremely important to me! It’s important to everyone here! Apart from you it would seem…” He took a deep breath. “Grian, Mumbo’s known you for so long, how long have you been doing this? We never had problems in the sixth season, so I don’t know where this came from.” X’s voice calmed a little bit. Grian looked down and scoffed. He had no idea how to explain what was happening. Xisuma would never believe him.

* * *

Mumbo, Scar, and Doc were at the barge in seconds. They looked around.

“Where’s Grian!” Mumbo yelled. Cub looked at them.

“X took him to talk. I think you should leave them a-” He was cut off by the group shooting off into the sky.

They flew over to the shop X and Grian were behind. They landed on top and looked down, listening. Impulse followed them.

“X, just listen, it’s hard to explain!” Grian said. X shook his head.

“That’s why we’re here! For you to explain yourself.” His voice got louder. “Grian, if you don’t clear your name right now, you’ll see where I put EX!” He yelled. Grian stepped back. “I’m not kidding!” He added.

“Xisuma please!” Grian growled. X lifted his communicator.

“If you won’t make an effort, I’ll do it now. Grian, we trusted you, we wanted you to be a part of this-this group, this family, but you turn around and do this!” Grian could see Xisuma’s eyes narrow.

“Xisuma, I’ll tell you what’s going on, but you won’t believe me.” Grian started. X’s hand was ready on a button. “I’m not completely human. I am a half worker. workers are a race of observers, which are being that watch over certain things. Because I am not fully worker, I am an Abomination. Iskall and Bdubs are workers who left the Empire a long time ago. They didn’t know I was an Abomination, and when they found out, they wanted to get rid of me. They set me up!” Grian tried to calm his voice, but it kept breaking with anger. Xisuma’s arms fell a little bit. Mumbo almost flew down, but Doc put his arm up. Impulse tried to process what he heard. He recalled what they were fighting about at the barge. Xisuma’s face hardened.

“I’m going to keep a close eye on you.” X finally said. “I don’t want to ban you. So, I have a solution for everyone.” He put his hands on his hips. Grian looked up at him.

“What?”

“I can’t just let you run around like that, soooooo…” X started pacing. “I’ll just need to keep an extremely close eye on you.” He mumbled some things under his breath, then looked back at Grian. “You will stay with me at all times until told otherwise.” He proclaimed. Grian looked at him confused

“Xisuma, you can’t just watch me all day!” Grian contradicted, but X shook his head.

“Well, unless you _want_ me to ban you. You’ll just stay with me so you have an alibi and so that you don’t do anything!” X crossed his arms and looked away. “I just need you not to act up.” Grian sighed. Great, now he wouldn’t ever get the chance to rebuild, even if he had his skills back.

Grian and X walked around the building to see Bdubs and Iskall listening in. They leaned against the shop and acted casual. X pulled Grian away and Bdubs saw something slip from Grian’s neck. They walked through the portal and Bdubs held out his hand. Iskall smiled as he saw half of the stone in his friend’s hand.

“That’s only half!” Iskall said. Bdubs smile faltered for only a moment, before he nodded

“Remember, we don’t need the whole thing like he does. We’ll give this to Stress to make potions out of.” He coughed as he finished. He looked at the handkerchief in his hand. An awful mix of blood and teal sparkles covered it. He gagged at the sight and put it down. Iskall sighed, leaning against the building.

“We…” Iskall took a deep breath, “We need to get to Stress…” He tried to regain his strength, but it didn’t come all the way. They slowly started walking to nether portal.

On the roof, Mumbo looked at Doc, Scar, and Impulse looked at each other.

“What is going on?” Impulse asked, first sitting up. Doc did the same and looked out on the shopping district. "Bdubs and Iskall were freaking Grian out at the barge and then it's his fault?"

“Well, we don’t exactly know,” Doc said. “All we have is that Grian isn’t really human, and there would be nothing wrong with that except for the fact he’s something called an observer.” Impulse looked at Bdubs and Iskall entering the portal.

“They called him an abomination…” He mumbled. Doc started connecting the dots in his head, but there wasn’t a full picture at all. Mumbo let out a long sigh and laid on his back.

“I’m worried.” He said after a long silence. “He’s never done anything like what Xisuma is accusing him off. I’m worried that someone is set him up. That someone is _trying_ to ban him…” He explained. Scar looked at his friend.

“Iskall and Bdubs have been acting extremely weird.” He pulled his legs to his chest. “And what about his back? How is he alive?” Doc and Impulse looked at them to explain, but Scar turned away. Mumbo closed his eyes tight.

“It-it’s not for the faint of heart… or stomach…” Mumbo said. The other two nodded, curious. Mumbo gulped. “Well, um, his back is… fractured or something, and um… it doesn’t look right…” He tried his hardest not to think about it. He could still feel the warmth on his hands. The blood, the beating, the breathing. Mumbo stood up quickly and leaned over, covering his mouth. Scar covered his face. Doc stood up and put a hand on Mumbo’s shoulder. Impulse stood up as well.

“You don’t want to see it!” Scar said. “You don’t want us to describe it.” He stood and turned to the hermits. “We don’t know how he’s still alive…” His voice was almost inaudible. Impulse backed away. His head filled with the curiosity he didn’t want. What did it look like? Doc was thinking the same thing, the intrigue taking both of them.

* * *

Impulse couldn't sleep thinking about the fight between Iskall and Bdubs and Grain. _An abomination_... His mind tried to figure out why they would use a word like that. Even if Grian wasn't entirely human, they wouldn't say that to any other non-human on the server. Bdubs to Doc _maybe,_ but not between anyone else. 

The next thing that forced itself into Impulse's head were the wings. Grian had wings. Wings that sparkled in the sun light and were made of a teal kind of redstone dust.

Then he remembered the dark stain on Grian's sweater. What Mumbo and Scar couldn't describe was right there, bleeding out.

"How is he alive...?" Impulse found himself saying to no one. His large base suddenly felt very alone and empty. He sat up, feeling watched. "Hello?"

To his relief, there was nothing around, just dark shadows climbing as the night got darker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop! Chapter 8! That's pretty cool!  
> I added the small bit with Impulse as I was uploading this which is kinda weird for me!  
> Anyhow, I just wanted to add so perspective because Impulse has a strange role in the story, not major, but still important.   
> Well, have a good day!!


	9. Get to Work

Xisuma and Grian arrived at Grian’s mansion so he could get new clothes. X told him to pack a bag and said he was going to stay at X’s base. Grian begrudgingly shoved stuff into a shulker box and pulled off the teal sweater. He put on a button up and returned the red sweater. He rolled his shoulders, suddenly feeling the pain loud and clear. He started to walk back to X when he felt nauseous.

“X…” He said quietly. X turned to him and held his shoulders up.

“What’s up?” X asked, sounding like he had calmed down from a few minutes ago. Grian looked at him.

“I feel sick…” Grian managed to get out. Xisuma wrapped an arm around him and helped him toward the portal to get to X’s base. They walked slowly through the nether and it took a while to get to the portal. They walked through and Grian collapsed. He laid on the other side and the admin picked him up. X sighed and looked at Grian’s pale face. He lifted Grian over his shoulders and flew him up to his storage building. He put Grian down on a bed and looked at him. What was the sudden change in wellness? Despite Xisuma’s better judgment, he couldn’t get it out of his head that this was a trick. He placed down a block of wool and sat. X knew better than to leave Grian alone, so he didn’t.

Hours passed and Grian hadn’t moved a muscle. X looked at Grian’s face to see any movement, but nothing stood out. He stood and flew out. He looked over his towers as he made his way to Keralis’ base. He flew into the office when he saw his friend inside. He waved and walked in.

“What’s going on, Xisuma?” He said, and X smiled.

“Hey, I’m just coming to say hi. How’s everything going over here?” He asked. Keralis looked out the large glass window as the sun set.

“Everything’s pretty good, very good. Well, except something feels… wrong I guess.” He said, turning back to his friend. X’s eyes were wide, expecting him to continue. “It feels like, something’s going wrong, you know? Just a feeling I guess…” He said, getting lost in his thoughts. X looked out the window at the hazy night sky. Pinks and blues highlighted the dark void above. He walked to the window and put his hand on it. He thought about everything that was going on. He didn’t know what to do.

“I’ve got to go.” He said, walking out. Keralis said something but X didn’t hear him. He flew back to his base to see Grian still asleep. He sighed and sat down beside the bed. X rubbed Grian’s shoulder. The builder's face looked like he was in pain. X pulled a potion from his pocket and poured it into his mouth. He didn’t know if it would do anything, but it was worth a try. Grian’s face softened and he readjusted himself. He still looked upset. Maybe he was having a nightmare?

_Grian watched as his mom’s body fell lifeless to the floor. The closet was open just wide enough for him to see out. He covered his mouth, knowing better than to let the observer authority hear him. He sucked in air and the creatures turned to the closet. Knowing they heard him, Grian tried his best to stay quiet. Even still, arms reached in and grabbed him. He cried out when he saw his mother’s body. Tears ran down his face. The observer authority pulled him through a portal into a dark room._

_Stadium seats stacked into the sky and a giant throne framed The Authority perfectly. Grian sank down at the sight of it. It had to be a hundred feet tall. Its booming voice shook the room._

_“How had that witch and this Abomination evaded our grasp for so long?” The observer authority looked up._

_“The Authority,” They greeted. “These two were hiding out under the protection of Foraminis. This abomination was to be studied upon.”_

_“For if you had come five years later, he would be executed today.” The Authority said. The Advisor stood up from his throne, a fifth of The Authority’s._

_“Sir, your son, The Arch Mage, has raised the minimum death penalty age to eighteen years.” He spoke clearly and sat down. The Authority nodded slowly and looked down._

_“Of course it matters not in this instance.” The Authority continued. “For what matters now is what The Worker Chief rules. He will be punished.”_

_Grian cried, trying to rip away from his captors. The Authority turned for The Worker Chief to speak. He stood._

_“The punishment of this abomination is to be banished far away. It is to never come back to the empire. It shall be banished to a world of great challenge and strife.” He sat down. The Arch Mage covered his face and The Mechanic Lord comforted his brother. The Arch Mage covered his mouth._

_“This is what our brother wants.” The Mechanic Lord said quietly. Grian looked up and met the Arch and Lord’s eyes. The Lord looked away while The Arch gave him a sympathetic look._

_“Abomination #2.” The Authority declared. “I hope we see no more like you and your insane brother.” Grian cried and fell to the ground. He looked around at the audience and saw two workers laughing. Grian covered his face, humiliated and scared._

_“Where are we to bring him?” One of the observers asked. The Kings looked at each other. The Matchmaker scoffed when they said something._

_“Sirs, no disrespect but he’s five… we can’t just throw him into a random world like that. He can’t develop skills. If you want him dead, kill him.” She said. The Arch looked at her._

_“Mam, you must respect my laws. Where Chieftain get to decide how moral Abominations are, I have the responsibility to do everything else.” He looked away._

_“That’s why we’ll chuck him into the wild.” The Worker Chief said. “He’ll die and you won’t be able to charge The workers.” The Arch Mage scoffed, knowing he could do nothing._

_“It is to be deposited to a random dimension along this timeline, one of scarcity and harsh conditions. Thank you.” The Authority said standing from his throne. Grian wanted to throw up. He wanted to die. Why not just kill him? Why?_

Grian woke up slowly to a new morning. His back ached and his head pounded. X was sleeping on a chair across the room. Grian couldn’t help but be mad at him. Of course Xisuma trusted Bdubs and Iskall over him. He stayed in the bed, feeling too sick to even move. What did he do wrong?

It took a while, but X woke up and stretched. He looked at Grian. X walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

“How are you feeling?” Xisuma asked, rubbing Grian's shoulder. He didn’t answer, but his eyes looked forward. Grian felt an unprecedented resentment towards X. Why was he being all friendly now? Grian mustered up enough strength to knock X’s hand off his shoulder. “Grian…” Xisuma sounded worried. Grian scoffed at him. He glanced up at X. X stood and looked down at Grian.

“I can take care of myself…” Grian breathed. He struggled to sit up. The admin crossed his arms.

“I know; I’m just making sure you don’t hurt someone.” He looked Grian up and down. “And that you don’t hurt yourself.” Grian smirked at him.

“Oh yeah, you still think I’m a hacker.” He rubbed his arms. “You don’t think even a little bit that I was set up?” X shook his head.

“That’s still a possibility, but I want to be safe and I have no reason to believe anyone would falsely accuse you.” He explained.

“Some of them do…” Grian mumbled under his breath. Xisuma clapped his hands together.

“Okay! I could use this extra help around the concrete shop! I’ll set up my camera in the room and you can get me some concrete!” Grian groaned and X pulled him up.

“You’re putting me to work?” Grian complained. X nodded and handed him a set of elytra and stack of rockets. Grian didn’t even know if he had enough energy to make it to the shopping district. It was like the stone wasn’t working. Nevertheless, they flew into the nether and out into the shops. Grian took a second to catch his breath. Xisuma looked back.

“Grian, are you okay?” He asked. Grian looked up. His face was pale.

“I’m fine, just give me a sec…” Grian caught his breath and started waking to the large building. X started walking as well. They walked in and X showed Grian to the concrete maker. Grian began his tedious job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took so long to get out because school Wi-Fi hates me!  
> I hope you've had a lovely day and Thanks again for the support!  
> We getting to the good part boissssss  
> Have a great day! :)


	10. Are Things Going to Get Worse?

Mumbo saw Xisuma and Grian enter the concrete shop. He followed X up to the landing and tapped his shoulder, making X jump.

“Mumbo!” He exclaimed. Mumbo looked at him and spoke in a low voice.

“Sorry to bother you this early, but what’s going on with Grian? Are you going to ban or what’s happening? Is he okay, like physically? And for that matter, mentally? Was he set up or did he really do what you think he did? Did you tell anyone else?” He asked all at once, X put his hands up.

“Slow down!” He called. “Listen, Grian’s fine, he’s staying with me.” X said, trying to remember the questions Mumbo asked. “I haven’t told anyone… wait how do you know about this?” He looked accusatory at Mumbo, whose face froze.

“Well, um, Grian told me and Scar and Doc, but then Impulse found out and, well, Stress was there when the mansion blew up, and-” Xisuma cut him off.

“How many people know?” He panicked. Mumbo shut his mouth and looked surprised. He opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally, he said,

“Me, Scar, Doc, Stress (I think), Iskall and Bdubs, seeing as they showed you the videos, probably know and Impulse seems to know, and Cub knows something’s up, of course Grian knows, definitely more than he lets on, though.” He counted on his figures as he spoke. X shook his head.

“I thought this was between me, Iskall, Bdubs, and Grian… ONLY!” He looked around, trying to see if someone was spying on them right now. “Doc and Scar know, like, about the banning thing?” Mumbo nodded. X started pacing. “Well I guess I did talk to Cub about it so, that’s my fault…” He mumbled, turning to pace the other way. Mumbo watched him patiently.

“I was worried that you had banned him when you took him away. I just saw him and started to get really confused. And thankful, I guess.” Mumbo broke the silence. X looked at him. “I, Scar, and Doc were worried you had gone through with it.” His voice shrunk. Xisuma shook his head and grabbed Mumbo’s shoulders.

“I want to stay away from doing that at all costs. Just, do this for me: keep this on the down low with other hermits who don’t know. I don’t want to cause a panic.” He opened his communicator and typed something in. “I’m going to get Iskall and Bdubs over here. Might as well get Doc and Scar… I want to tell them this as well.”

Soon enough, Doc, Scar, Bdubs, and Iskall came into the shop. The sky was dark with clouds and thunder rolled in the distance. They walked into the shop. It was darker, and the lights didn’t seem to do as much. Scar and Bdubs looked at each other and narrowed their eyes. The hermits walked up to the landing where Xisuma and Mumbo were standing. X gestured for them.

“Well, you should know why you’re here, seeing what you’ve been brought into this week.” X said, he started to pace slowly in front of them. “I just want to say a couple of things, to _all_ of you so we can avoid conflict.” He looked to make sure they were still listening. “Let’s keep this whole ordeal to ourselves. I don't want anyone to start blaming each other, and I don’t want anyone to be rude to Grian.” He looked at Iskall and Bdubs when he said that.

“Excuse me, but Grian tried to kill Iskall.” Bdubs said. Iskall nodded. X sighed.

“This is why I want to keep this to ourselves: Grian brought up a good point that he could be framed.” Scar gasped. “Don’t go around saying things you don’t know. Please, this is a tricky situation, exceptionally the part with Grian not being fully human.”

“Doc’s not human.” Iskall said. X looked at him and then to Doc.

“Well, yes, but the problem is the fact that this is a secret. Grian purposefully chose not to say anything.”

“But, X,” Scar said, “Grian told us about a rock that lets him be… normal. We only have one half.” Bdubs and Iskall froze. X nodded.

“I’m sure we’ll find it somewhere.” He reassured. X looked at Iskall and Bdubs. “Or will we?” They gulped.

“Surely!”

“Of course!” They said in sync. Mumbo, Doc, and Scar looked at the two. X stepped forward. He narrowed his eyes.

“Do you two happen to know where this stone is?” He asked. They looked at each other and started laughing loudly.

“Ummmmmmmmmm” Iskall said, smiling awkwardly.

“Hey, X, I finished the concrete you-” Grian walked up the stairs and looked at X and then to everyone else. “What’s going on?” He asked. Mumbo ran to him and hugged him.

“I am so glad you’re still here!” He said, Grian trying to push away, but he was too weak. “We were so worried! Well, most of us…” Mumbo looked at Bdubs and Iskall.

“Let…go…of…me…” Grian wheezed. Mumbo dropped him. He coughed and looked up at X. “You guys worry too much.” He scowled. Doc scoffed.

“You can’t just drop a bombshell of you not being human and all this other stuff and expect us not to worry.” Doc responded, crossing his arms. Grian looked down. He felt super uncomfortable around them. He felt like everyone was watching him, like he’d done something awful. Maybe he had.

“I’m just gonna go back downstairs.” He mumbled, suddenly feeling anxious and angry.

“Grian, you’re fine, we’re just talking about who knows about all of this and that we’re gonna keep it a secret.” Xisuma explained. This somehow made Grian feel worse. He didn’t want to be the center of all of this. Scar put a hand on his shoulder. He ripped himself away.

“Don’t-” He caught himself before he said anything else and took a deep breath. “Sorry.” He said flatly, trying not to sound annoyed as he headed back down the stairs.

“Watch your tone, freak” Bdubs hissed under his breath. Grian turned and pulled out his netherite sword. Everyone jumped back. Iskall hid behind Bdubs. Grian slid the sword away and started walking again.

His vision got blurry for a sec. He felt lightheaded. He heard Mumbo’s voice ask him something, but he didn’t understand. “…Imfine…” Grian slurred his words and watched the world go dark.

Still, he walked away. His vision came in and out and he made his way to a bench and sat down.

“Bdubs, are you sure you don’t know where that stone is?” Scar asked, accusatory. Bdubs and Iskall met each other’s worried eyes. They laughed nervously.

“Well, um, we didn’t know he needed it _that_ bad!” Bdubs laughed. Mumbo’s eyes grew.

“What do you mean? Where is it?” He asked, stepping closer. Iskall laughed and backed away.

“We might have made it into potions…” Iskall said quietly. Doc and Scar froze. Mumbo just looked forward. “Look, guys, Bdubs and I were sick, we were going to die if we didn’t use it! And we only used half of it, we have no idea where the other half is!” Iskall felt uneasy and sick saying that.

“What do you mean, ‘you were going to die’?” X raised his voice. Bdubs laughed.

“You see, it’s all very hard to explain!” He stumbled back as Doc and X pressed forward. “That rock was the only thing that could have saved us, so when we…uh… saw it on the ground! Yes! We took it to Stress to make potions out of! See, Grian’s not going to die, it’ll just be… uncomfortable!” Doc rubbed his face.

“How in the ever loving world do you know all of this, and that that specific rock, was the key to your survival? And how do you know Grian won’t die?” Doc raised his voice a lot more than X. Iskall and Bdubs backed away.

“Long story?” Iskall tried to cover, but Doc wasn’t buying it.

“Why do you guys suddenly hate Grian?” X asked, calming his voice down.

“Hates a strong word.” Bdubs replied.

“So you do hate him! Why?” Doc scoffed.

“Because he’s—” Iskall stopped himself and put his hands behind his back. “We don’t hate him.” Scar looked at his friends, disappointed.

“Guys, we’re all friends here, we are here to have fun and live an exciting life! Grian’s been great and everyone’s enjoyed him, even you two. So what’s with the change of heart? We scoffed when X told us you two might have set him up, but it doesn’t seem to off now.” He said, keeping his voice low and calm. Bdubs sighed and looked at Iskall. Iskall shook his head, but Bdubs put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Iskall took a deep breath and looked at his friends.

“Don’t scream.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliff hanger!  
> My Favorite!  
> I hate cliff hangers even when the entire work is out.  
> I hope you guys don't hate Iskall and Bdubs too much!


	11. Don't Scream

“Don’t scream.” He said calmly. Iskall slowly transformed into a dark figure. Bdubs did the same. They seemed to absorb light. Their eyes formed into white holes in the face, emitting light. Mumbo jumped back. Iskall’s new form had a familiar teal eye and Bdubs wore a red bandana.

“We are worker observers.” Bdubs explained. The other hermits stood still with wide eyes. “That’s why we hate Grian.” He crossed his arms that weren’t previously visible. Still the others stayed silent. Iskall groaned. Bdubs continued his point

“Listen, He’s a great guy, but the problem is he is unstable and dangerous because He is an abomination. He doesn’t deserve a life like this! He was meant to suffer!” Bdubs looked at the blank faces and continued. “His parents were disgusting for what they did and thus they were killed for it-”

“So you want him to live eternally alone and in the dark because what his parents did? You killed his parents because they loved each other?” Mumbo interrupted him, yelling. Iskall and Bdubs transformed back.

“I know, disgusting. I wouldn’t use ‘love’ though, it’s more like gas lighting-” Mumbo cut him off again.

“You don’t see anything wrong with that?!” He yelled. Bdubs and Iskall looked at each and backed up at Mumbo.

“No, not really.” Bdubs said. “He kinda asked for it, seeing as he’s an Abomination-human, Parents probably told him messed up things, so better he stays away from society.” Mumbo couldn’t help but laugh a little. He looked at Grian who was now asleep _. ‘They killed his parents and made him like this, and they see nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with that.’_ Mumbo thought. It was such a large disconnect, he didn’t see any fast way to change their minds.

“What else did they do to him?” Mumbo asked, almost whispering.

“We didn’t _do_ anything. His own messed up DNA basically made him a psychopath. He’s not good at anything, that’s not the fault of the workers” Iskall affirmed. Doc grabbed Mumbo’s shoulder and pulled him over.

“Remember what Grian said?” He whispered. Mumbo nodded. They again looked over at Grian. Scar looked at Bdubs, scared. He took a few steps forward.

“So just because you found out he wasn’t ‘pure’ or whatever, you stopped being friends with him and started trying to get X to ban him? Seems like a bit of an overreaction!” Bdubs looked betrayed.

“It’s definitely _not_ an overreaction! Grian shouldn’t be alive! Those skills we’ve seen him use aren’t his! And he isn’t safe to be around without his stone! Grian will hurt himself and others if he doesn’t have the full stone. You saw what happened when he lost half of it, now he doesn’t have anything.” Bdubs looked away. “When he’s not sick, Grian’s unstable. He’d burn down the server if he could.” Iskall didn’t meet any of their eyes as well. Xisuma stepped back and tried to process everything he heard. How much of what they showed him was fake? Scarier even, how much wasn’t?

“Stay quiet about this.” Xisuma spit out, a little more aggressive then he meant it. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt, foremost, and please don’t say anything to Grian about this.” He looked at all of them to make sure he was clear. They all nodded their heads slowly. X walked passed all of them and to Grian. He looked back at them. “Look for the other half of the stone. Please. If not for Grian, then for the server.” Mumbo walked down to X and Grian. He looked down at his friend.

“I’ll take him back to my base.” He offered. “I feel like he might be more comfortable there.” Xisuma nodded.

“Just make sure you keep a close eye on him.”

Mumbo nodded.

* * *

The sun was just starting to peep out of the clouds as Keralis walked to the concrete shop to get his money and restock. Even though the tension on the server felt weird, today was a little bit more freeing. He walked into the shop and saw X and Mumbo standing over a sleeping Grian, whispering in a low voice. Doc was whisper-yelling at Iskall and Bdubs while Scar rubbed his face. Keralis slowly stepped over to Mumbo and Xisuma

“Xisuma?” He said, making them jump. X quickly turned. He sighed and made himself smile, even though it wasn’t visible.

“Hello Keralis!” Mumbo answered, putting on a smile of his own. He smiled back at them.

“Hey, I’ll get the diamonds for you and drop them off in your office, how’s that?” X compromised without hearing out Keralis. The construction worker cocked his head.

“I mean I’m already here, I can get them! No need to do that!” He laughed. Xisuma just started pushing him toward the doors.

“No, no, it’s quite alright!” He shoved him out, still forcing a smile. Keralis tried to sneak a glance up at the argument. “I’ll talk to you later!” X closed the door in his face. He blinked. What?

Kinda weirded out, Keralis started walking away. He tried to imagine what was going on. Was that why the server seemed so tense right now? But why, what was really going on? Then a thought entered his mind. Was someone planning to grief the Hermitcraft server? At first, he pushed the thought aside. It made no sense! ...unless you thought about Grian’s mansion. When they had all been called to that meeting a week ago, X and Etho talked about that possibility. But it was a one-time thing! Grian’s mansion was the only thing that had gotten destroyed without explanation. Right?

Joe ran up beside Keralis.

“Hey, do you know why the concrete shop’s closed?” He asked. Keralis shook his head.

“No, not really, X just told me he’d drop off my money later! It’s very weird. Looked like something was happening, though!” He said, stopping. Joe stopped walking and looked at him.

“Like what?”

“I saw Doc, Iskall, and Bdubs arguing and Mumbo, Scar, and Grian were there. It was really strange.” Keralis explained. “Grian was sleeping or something and the lights were all dim.” Joe looked back at the huge white building. Etho ran up to them.

“I overheard, is Grian in there?” He asked. Keralis nodded. Etho sighed. “There is something really weird going on. I saw Grian right before the sky turned to void the first time. His eyes turned black and then it happened.”

Joe turned his attention to Mumbo and X walking out of the concrete shop. Mumbo was carrying Grian and he flew away quickly. X looked around and the three hermits hid. They looked around a shop and watched Doc and Scar walked out. Doc pushed X aside and yelled something. They were too far away to hear. Scar was covering his face. Iskall and Bdubs followed them out, looking as if they were pleading their case. Doc flew away as soon as he saw them and Scar wasn’t far behind. Etho looked at Joe and Keralis. They shared the same worried look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be out till Wednesday next week, I'll try to get a chapter out tomorrow, but I don't know about the rest of the weekend  
> Well, I hope everyone's 2021 has been going well so far, and I hope this whole quarantine thing plays itself out.  
> I'm so glad people like this, thank you all soo much. every single one of you who has left kudos I thank you so much. And even people you just clicked on this to check it out, thank you.  
> Hate to pull out the thank yous every note I do, but I feel like I should!  
> Have a good day!


	12. Can You Trust Him

Mumbo carefully landed in his base and set Grian down on his bed. He took a very deep breath and held it for a second. How was he supposed to prove to Bdubs and Iskall that there was nothing wrong with Grian? He looked at his friend. First things first, he needed to find the stone, as much of it as he could. Mumbo could see the pain in Grian’s face.

A cool breeze blew through the base and Mumbo heard the rhythmic beat of his base’s heart. He felt unsettled when he looked at Grian. The builder seemed short, anxious, and for the first time in a long time, Mumbo felt unsafe. Was Grian as unstable as Iskall and Bdubs said he was? The thought scared him even more. The cold wind chilled him to the bone. The storage room seemed to get darker and Mumbo could hear whispers from all around.

“Can you trust him?” A voice spoke in his ear. Mumbo didn’t dare turn around. He took a deep breath. He could feel something watching him. The voice sounded real, unlike the ethereal whispers. “Better yet, can you speak?” It asked, a joking tone edging the voice. Even still, it sounded unemotional. Mumbo gulped. He slowly turned around, but just fell back at what he saw.

The large eye covered most of the head, the body a solid shape, somehow absorbing light, similar to how Iskall and Bdubs looked. The main difference between the three was that this one had a cross for a pupil, while the other two had nothing.

“Wh-what are you?” Mumbo sputtered out. The thing laughed, emptiness creeping from it.

“It’s not very polite not to answer a question giving to you.” It started. “But I might as well be the bigger person.” It floated around Mumbo, circling him. “I’m Abomination.” The name told Mumbo all he needed to know.

“You-you’re like Grian…” He gasped. Abomination laughed again.

“No, _Grian_ is like me. Do you ever wonder why they call us what they do?” He answered. Mumbo kept looking forward and took deep breaths. Abomination came to a stopping point right in front of Mumbo. Their eyes locked. Mumbo couldn’t seem to breathe. “We both hurt so, so much,” It continued. “The biology just didn’t match, and now we live, every second agonizing. It’s been hundreds of years for me, but Grian’s so young, he has yet to master his emotions and pain. Can you trust him?”

Mumbo wrapped his arms around his chest, still staring into Abomination’s eye. He felt so cold and alone. He’d never truly questioned if he could trust Grian. The thought never crossed his mind. His eyes fell down to the ground. The pumping of the base suddenly felt slow and painful, as if it was struggling. But that’s not how he programmed it. He looked back up at Abomination.

“You can hear it. His pain.” Abomination said. Mumbo looked back at Grian. His breathing was slow. The beating was slow and would make anyone fear for a life. “It’s sounded like that for most of his life. Don’t you remember feeling it?” Mumbo remembered the awful feeling, and suddenly he was back, looking down at the scene from the broken rafters of Grian’s base. Abomination sat with him as they watched. Mumbo wrapped his arms tighter, forcing his eyes shut as the feelings returned to his hands and arms. He could remember. It was slow and painful. It was struggling. Tears boiled in his eyes and when he opened them, he was back at his base, looking at Grian sleeping. The pumping had returned to that of the base’s heart.

“I can help.” Abomination offered. Mumbo stood and turned to the creature. The overwhelming feeling of helplessness grew inside of Mumbo and he held out a hesitant hand. The Abomination softly took it. “I’ll help you and Grian return to normality, and thus the rest of the server. You think only one of those stones exist?” It smiled. And Mumbo stepped back. “You have no idea how large this timeline is…” Abomination led Mumbo up and out of his base. They stood, looking out at the rainy sky.

“You see, this dimension you and so many others call home is one of an infinite number. You actually know so little compared to everything. You’re just dumb and ignorant. All of them coexist on this timeline. There are infinite timelines, some vastly different, some exactly the same but you chose not to put strawberries on your breakfast.” Mumbo thought about his breakfast, how the heck did he know? “A redstone engineer yourself, you could probably make a portal to travel these timelines and dimensions. Of course, you and I, to find another stone for your friend, if you can call him that, only need to travel dimensions. I can guide you.” Mumbo thought for a second. He wanted to do whatever he could for Grian, and everyone else. He knew he had just taken Grian in, but he needed to focus on this. It was for the best.

He reached for his communicator and started typing. He felt bad, but it was what he needed to do. He told X to meet him at his base. Soon enough, Xisuma landed in the living base and looked at Mumbo. Abomination faded into the shadows to avoid detection.

“What’s going on?” X asked. Mumbo looked away.

“I need you to take Grian.” He said flatly. “I know how to help him, but I can’t watch him anymore.” X looked between him and Grian.

“Mumbo, if anything is wrong, you need to tell me…” X slowly walked forward. Mumbo looked back at Grian. Suddenly, the feelings returned to his hands and arms. He could almost feel the pumping and the breathing and the beating and- “Mumbo!” X cut off Mumbo’s thoughts and shook him slightly. Mumbo wrapped his hands around his body. Tears came to his eyes.

“I just can’t keep him anymore!” Mumbo said, choking back tears of horror. “Please, just, make sure he’s safe…” Mumbo stepped back. “I can’t think about it anymore!” X opened his mouth to protest, but he just nodded instead. Xisuma picked up Grian and flew away, thinking about what had happened. Mumbo looked horrified as if he knew something X didn’t…

“Abomination, I’m ready.” Mumbo said, wiping off tears and turning around. Abomination smiled and nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can he trust him?


	13. Go Deeper

The two went far underground and Mumbo started to dig out a large area. Abomination told him the dimensions of the area and what materials he needed. The area was freezing, but Abomination told Mumbo to press on.

“Grian’s life is at stake.” It said. “You’re just speeding it up.” Mumbo mined for hours and looked at how far he’d come. He was tired, but Abomination forced him forward. “You’re just being lazy and selfish. If your life was on line, Grian wouldn’t complain.” Mumbo looked down at his sore hands and sighed. He pulled out the box of redstone and opened it. Abomination went over to him.

“First we need to build the base of the portal. This is the easy part, let’s see how well you do.” Abomination started. They walked to the center of the room. “First place a five by five frame of Netherite blocks and redstone blocks, starting redstone on the bottom left corner.” Mumbo scoffed.

“What? I don’t have that? That’s impossible!” Mumbo said, shocked. Abomination looked at him.

“Well then, I guess we better start mining.” It said flatly. Mumbo rolled his shoulders and closed his eyes. Abomination looked away. “Don’t be lazy, your world is on the line.”

Mumbo didn’t know what day it was when he came out of the nether. He could feel his body starting to shut down. He could hardly keep his eyes open. Abomination ushered him back to the space beneath his base. While in the nether, Abomination forced Mumbo to take his communicator off. He put the netherite into the furnace and sat down. He was starving and tired. His eyes slowly closed.

The nap didn’t feel like it lasted long when Abomination woke him up to continue the process. Mumbo built the blocks and looked to Abomination. The creature smiled and continued telling him how to build the portal. He messed up the first time, but got it right the second. He felt his eyes getting heavy again. Had it been another day already?

“Place the repeater on top of the top right block.” Abomination instructed, leading into another day of placing redstone and blocks. Mumbo didn’t know what time it was once they had finished all of the redstone. Though the air was frigid, Mumbo had taken off his coat in exchange for more comfort and flexibility. The once white shirt was now stained with dirt and redstone. Abomination stepped back and looked at the work Mumbo had done.

“I’ve seen far better and faster work.” It commented. “But it does its job. Soon, you’ll surely get better. Has the severity not kicked in yet?” Mumbo wrapped his arms around himself. Abomination was constantly ridiculing him, yet, he pressed on. For Grian and for the server. Abomination looked down at Mumbo, unfeeling. “No wonder you keep that suit on.” He said simply. Mumbo held himself tighter.

“What’s next?” He asked. Abomination looked forward.

“I like your attitude.” It said, not sounding at all like it. “We need to get our hands on the most powerful things from your dimension. Doesn’t look like you know many of them, so I’ll give us a list.” Mumbo looked down. “Another few netherite blocks, which we should still have, dragon egg, elytra, and sponge. Why in the world one of the most powerful forces in this forsaken dimension is a sponge is beyond me, but I hope you know where those things are.” Mumbo tried to think through his clouded mind. He knew that he could just buy and elytra, but was there any way to buy the other things? He only had two netherite scraps left, so he’d have to buy that too. But sponge and a dragon egg?

“I need help.” Mumbo started, but Abomination cut him off.

“No. You need to do this alone. You are the only one who can do this.”

“But why? I just need help getting the-”

“If you don’t do this completely on your own, the portal will NOT work! If I knew why that was, I’d tell you. This process is very delicate.”

“So I have to go mine all of that netherite again?” Mumbo said in a bit of disbelief. Abomination nodded. Mumbo sat back down and covered his face. How was he supposed to do this?

* * *

Impulse paced in the decked out lobby. It had been two weeks since anyone had seen Mumbo. X and Grian sat on the edge of X’s board. Doc and Scar talked quietly away from everyone else. Impulse looked at Grian and X.

“How’s Grian doing?” He asked. X nodded. Grian scoffed.

“I’m right here, you can ask me myself!” He said, raising his voice and standing up. X put a hand on his arm, but it was quickly rejected.

“Sorry!” Impulse quickly said. “Are you sure none of you have seen Mumbo?” He asked, looking around. Suddenly. Iskall and Stress ran down.

“Have any of you guys seen Mumbo?” Iskall asked, out of breath. X exchanged worried glances with Impulse. Iskall saw Grian. “It was you, wasn’t it?!” He yelled, running up to Grian and pulling him up by the collar. Grian readied his arm to swing at Iskall’s face, and Iskall only slightly dodged. Xisuma pulled Grian back.

“Guys!” He raised his voice and Scar and Doc looked over. “Just stop. Grian was with me all week, he never left my sight.” Impulse could hear the tension in his voice. It was so unlike him.

“Grian!” Doc scolded, walking over and taking Grian from X. Pain flashed on Grian’s face when Doc pulled his arm. Tears came to his eyes.

“Oh yeah, then where is Mumbo? He couldn’t have just disappeared!” Iskall argued when Stress put a hand on his arm. He calmed down a little bit. “I’m getting really worried. He wouldn’t respond to any messages and I’ve checked his base. It’s empty.” His voice cracked a little. “We haven’t even been able to find the stone.”

“So everything’s going to h*ll.” Doc said. “We can’t find Mumbo, Grian is… something… and what else? Does anyone else know of a threat or something else we need to be worrying about? Now would be the time to say something!”

They all looked at each other. “When I was going to ban Grian, I accidentally unbanned EX.” Xisuma said suddenly. They all looked at him. He averted his eyes.

“I replaced the diamond throne and then lost it.” Iskall said. “All 7 stacks… and 7 blocks…” Scar looked at him, shocked.

“Okay, I didn’t mean to start a whole-” Grian cut Doc off.

“I know I’ve been acting like a dirt bag this entire time but I don’t know what’s going on, and it hurts,” He cried, tears falling from his eyes. “It hurts so much!” Grian wrapped his arms around himself, turning away. Doc sighed.

“Anyone else?” He asked sarcastically. X thought about what Mumbo said before he disappeared. “…no?” He thought carefully about what he’d say, seeing as he had just blurted out something pretty important. He rubbed his face to erase the embarrassment.

“It’s something that Mumbo said.” Xisuma started, catching everyone’s attention. “He told me to take Grian and he looked terrified. He told me, ‘I can’t think about _it_ anymore’. I don’t know why.” X looked down at his hands. Grian ran over to him.

“Is that all he said?!” He asked, panicked. X looked up.

“Well, he said he just couldn’t take care of you, and that he knew how to help you-” Grian looked up at Iskall. Iskall looked scared.

“Abomination?” Iskall asked Grian, who nodded. “He didn’t tell you why?” Iskall asked next. X shook his head.

“We need to find them before they leave!” Grian grabbed Iskall.

“Yeah I know!” Iskall yelled back, pushing Grian away. “But no one knows where he is, moron!”

“That’s why we need to find him!” Grian raised his voice. Scar and Stress backed up.

“You’re the abomination, you should know where you're disgusting sibling is!” Iskall spat back, rearing his arm for a punch. Grian growled at him and clenched his fist.

“He’s not my brother! He’s insane, I’m nothing like him!” Grian said, taking a step back.

“ _IT,_ Grian. And I’d disagree!” Grian charged at Iskall, but Doc scooped him up. They glared at each other.

“Both of you!” Doc yelled. He calmed himself down. “Can you let us in on what the heck you’re talking about instead of fighting like ten-year-olds? Mumbo seems like he’s in danger!” Grian and Iskall calmed down and looked at each other one last time.

“Listen, the term abomination comes from Abomination, an awful worker-shadow. It made a name for himself doing terrible things. It has a birth defect, one that makes It constantly in pain. It takes that pain, balls it up, and shoves it onto whoever will cause the biggest chain reaction of emotional and physical pain. That’s why _it_ and Grian are so similar, they both cause unneeded amounts of pain.” Grian swung a fist at Iskall and hit him in the stomach.

“We are NOT the same!” Grian yelled. Doc reaffirmed Grian in his arms and held him to the side. Iskall rubbed his stomach.

“Gee, not at all…” Iskall groaned. Grian realized what he did and backed up a bit. “As I was saying… Abomination is going to hurt and or kill Mumbo to solicit a reaction out of us… a painful one.” Grian backed further into Doc.

“So that’s why you’re so afraid of Grian?” Scar asked. “You think he’s going to turn into that?” Iskall nodded slowly. Scar walked over and rubbed Iskall’s shoulder. “Grian’s not like that, we won’t let him be like that.” The mayor affirmed. Still, Iskall didn’t look away from the builder.

“Wait, what?” Impulse said, trying to catch up.

“Let’s go find Mumbo.” Doc said, taking charge. “If we can find him and get this Abomination away from him, He won’t die and hopefully, Abomination will stay away from us.” Doc let go of Grian and pushed him back to X. Grian cursed under his breath and grabbed his stomach. X looked at him concerned.

“Grian, take your shirt off.” X said. Grian looked at him disgusted and so did Iskall. “I need to check your back.” X clarified. Grian walked around a corner with him and slipped off his sweater with pain. X lifted the white button-up, now stained with blood. He covered his mouth.

“It’s gotten worse…” X seethed. A bruise covered Grian’s whole back. The cut that was only half of his back now spanned the entire spine. X could swear that he could see organs churning behind a bloody wall. Teal sparkles were spread over Grian’s insides. He put Grian’s shirt down. They walked back into the lobby, Grian wobbling.

“Guys, I don’t know if Grian can make it.” Xisuma looked at everyone. Grian fell onto X’s chest.

“Imfine…” Grian slurred, trying to stand up. X helped him up.

“No you’re not.” X responded. “Grian, you’re hurt… Who’s gonna stay with him? If no one else, then I will.” Iskall shook his head. Scar looked away. Stress slowly walked out of the Decked Out lobby. Doc looked around. X sighed.

“Okay, I’ll-” X started but someone ran down the stairs.

“I’ll keep him!” Etho said. They all looked at him. “You know, me and Impulse will take care of him!” Impulse looked at him with conviction. “Trust me.”

“Okay. I can trust you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be gone starting tomorrow until Wednesday the following week!  
> I am going to post a couple chapter to ease everyone while I'm gone.  
> It is fully your decision is you want to read them all when they come out today, or if you want to spread it out!  
> I hope every one has a fabulous weekend!  
> These next couple of chapters, I'll be putting story related things in the notes, because of the content of the next few ones!  
> It all goes downhill (or uphill if you're one of those people lol) from here!  
> Please check out my sister's channel at MKalaxy on youtube! I'm in a vid...  
> SEATBELTS EVERYONE!  
> Please lets this be a normal fanfic!  
> With random person on the internet #1.345x10^189? NO WAY!


	14. He Can Help

Doc, Scar, X, and Iskall approached Mumbo’s base with extreme caution. The dark gray clouds seemed to consume each other, violently taking the sky captive. The light flutter of cold rain made Doc shiver. Looking up at this impossibly built structure sent chills down X’s spine. Cold air seemed to flood out of the ancient ruins, each crack in the wall seemed to be carefully placed. The veil of wind and rain made even the sleekest, futuristic parts look old and weathered. Scar wrapped his arms around himself, trying to force out the cold. As the group came closer, they could hear the eurythmic beating of the heart that kept this base alive. The golden heart that crowned the top of the four spires seemed to struggle. The inside looked dark overgrowth. It looked abandoned, not in a beautiful way, but a sickeningly alone way. No matter how many times he looked back to see his friends, Iskall couldn’t help but feel helplessly alone. The wooden floor looked uninviting, ready to cave in under the feet of visitors. The wind seemed to stop when they walked in, a wall of stillness.

“Hello…?” Iskall asked, uncharacteristically serious. There was no echo. Iskall felt even more alone. He’d never imagined being this close to _the_ Abomination. They walked in further, taking in the cold, dead air. “Hello?” He asked again. No answer. The stillness stung, the lone beating and pumping drilling into the hermits’ heads.

“What the heck, he has that running all day?” Doc complained, covering his ears. Scar shushed him and walked past the nether portal, looking down into the storage system, ironically at the heart of Mumbo’s ruined base. The four hopped down and looked around. The grass was wet with condensation and an unorganized mess of chest scattered the room. The air was just as still and the heart beat was still unsteadily pumping.

“Mumbo!” Scar yelled across the room. They looked around for a while, but Scar saw something that should have been obvious. The beacon that was normally located at the center of Mumbo’s base was moved down underground. Scar smiled. “Guys, the beacon goes down! He might be down there!” Scar waited for everyone to come over and then jumped down. Doc, Xisuma, and Iskall followed. The darkness cut hard and deep. The Beacon only seemed to light up the space about ten blocks around. X backed up with the other three to look around the dark room. Scar gulped.

“Hey, um, Mumbo, are you down here?” X asked, his voice braking with fear despite his best efforts. Just barely, hardly over the sound of the beacon, they could hear mining in the far right corner. Xisuma lit a torch to lead the way. Even with the extra light, the darkness swallowed them soon after leaving the beacon. The warm flame of the torch was almost completely still, apart from the slow movement of X. “Mumbo?” X called again, getting the unsettling feeling that the darkness was also blocking sound. It was deathly silent again. The heart beat was hardly audible at this point. He had only just started walking.

Thankfully, as a point of reference in the dark abyss, the mining was getting louder. They walked closer, Iskall and Scar towards the back and Doc and Xisuma in the front. They walked forward slowly, but jumped back when they saw a tall shadow. Iskall let out a tight bit of breath.

“Abomination! Get the heck away from my friend!” He yelled charging into the darkness. X, Doc, and Scar jumped back further. A deafening shriek filled the air and the darkness whooshed away in a wave of cold, frigid, air, threatening to shove the hermits over. Xisuma looked forward to Iskall, who was leaning over someone. Mumbo. The three hermits rushed over, kneeling next to Iskall.

“What did he do to you?”

* * *

Etho and Impulse took Grian to the mycelium base and sat him down in one of the chairs. They walked down one of the halls to the vault, out of hearing range of Grian.

“Listen, the whole server is on edge. No one’s really seen anyone in a long time. We need to do something fun for everyone.” Etho explained. Impulse nodded and looked back at Grian.

“I don’t think he’s in good shape to do anything right now.” Impulse added. Etho nodded.

“Well, that’s why he doesn’t really need to do anything. We’re just gonna give HEP a little visit and Grian can tag along.” Etho explained, turning to the fake vault, back towards Impulse. “We need to try to find light in whatever’s going on, and having Scar and Xisuma away from HEP is perfect timing.” He turned back to his friends with a look of hopefulness. He really wanted to get things back in the realm of normality. Impulse nodded, taking on a smile of his own.

“It’s a good idea, but I think we need to give Grian a bit of time to rest.”

Grian laid his head down on the meeting table, suddenly too tired to try and listen in to what Etho and Impulse were talking about. He felt around his neck for the half of stone he still had. He thought he still had it. It was gone. Panic surged Grian’s body, enough to launch him out of his seat. He looked around the space to find it, but it was nowhere. It was very clear to Grian why he’d been feeling so awful. He slowly fell into his chair again and laid his head down. Suddenly it was very hard to move or think. Pain covered his body in a thick blanket. His vision faded in and out, giving his glimpses of bright lights. His body went numb, apart from a tingling feeling and Grian’s back. He fell out of the chair and could feel, for a second, his head land on the cold, polished floor. Ringing smothered out any voices calling to him. His eyes were open, but no light came through. It was like all senses had been ripped from Grian’s body. Even now he couldn’t feel his back.

Like a wave, all feeling came back and he screamed in pain. All of his senses jumped back into action, hitting Grian with every ounce of energy left in his body. He couldn’t feel his back though. But maybe he was just numb from the pain. Tears started to stream down his face. He suppressed letting out noise, but the effort was futile.

He felt a potion thrown on him and the pain ceased, if only by a little bit. He calmed his breathing and felt under control again. He stood up on steady legs and looked at Etho and Impulse, who were backed against a wall. A teal filter covered Grian’s eyes and Etho and Impulse’s faces seemed to disappear into darkness. They didn’t say anything, just looked in shock. Grian smiled. The lingering pain was nice.

Etho searched Grian’s face for humanity, but he looked so foreign in that moment. The large sparkling wings spread impossibly wide. This had happened the first time. He wasn’t going to let Grian get away this time. Despite all logic, Etho ran up to Grian and grabbed his arms. The wings fell apart and the dust scattered. Grian’s face melted back into pain and Etho could see his face return to something he recognized. Tears came to Grian’s eyes again. Etho hesitated for a few seconds but then pulled Grian close to him, careful to avoid the injury now bleeding through the red sweater.

“You’re okay.” Etho said. “You’re safe.” He wasn’t the best at comforting people, but he had to do something. Grian felt weak, sick. Etho looked at the builder’s face. He was pale with a strange blue-green tint. “Impulse, can you get a bed out?” Impulse nodded, not willing to ask any questions. He set down a blue bed and Etho laid Grian on it.

“We need to tell X about this!” Impulse squeaked. Etho nodded.

“We’ll tell him when he gets back.”

“You’ll think he’ll listen?” A new voice entered the conversation. Etho and Impulse looked around, trying to see who was there. A shadow hopped down from the rafters in the ceiling and looked at them. The red armor was unmistakable. Etho sighed while Impulse backed up.

“How did you find this place, EX?” Etho asked accusatory. EX chuckled.

“X-ray!” He said as if it was obvious, tapping the darkened window of his visor.

* * *

Xisuma, Doc, Scar, and Iskall didn’t even notice the sky turning black or the air standing still. The dark basement of Mumbo’s looming base was already in that state of being. Iskall lifted Mumbo out of the dark hole and into the room housing the storage system. He laid his friend on his bed and sat near him. Iskall’s eye filled with tears of fear. He’d never imagined he’d be so close to an Abomination, let alone two! They were horror stories told to kids to get them home before dark, legends, stereotypical monsters. When you went into middle and high school, you learned the dark history, how messed up the love between a worker and something else was, how the two must have been insane. Then they would learn about the power Abomination could wield and the agony and pain they had to withstand. The only thing that Iskall could focus on, consistently, was what it had done to Mumbo.

Xisuma paced, thinking hard. They had yet to confirm what had happened to Mumbo. Iskall seemed bent on the idea of it being ‘Abomination’, but Doc was skeptical. Doc made the connection between the environments to the strange bursts of darkness that had happened two times, to their knowledge. Scar and X knew that those had come from Grian. If Iskall was telling the truth about Grian being an ‘abomination’, either Grian or Abomination could be responsible. X looked back at Doc and Scar who were talking in a corner. Grain had been with X the entire time, so that made no sense. The other option of it being Abomination was strange because how had X not noticed him join the server or seen him. There is no way X wouldn’t have noticed something like that. It seemed impossible.

Doc sighed. “Scar, do you think we can still believe Bdubs and Iskall?” He asked, defeated. Scar crossed his arms.

“I don’t know. Bdubs has been nothing but great as long as I’ve known him, and you’ve been friends for so long,” Scar peeked over at Iskall. “I never would have thought any of this.” Doc nodded, resting his hands on his waist.

“Do you think he can trust Grian?” Doc added. Scar shook his head in confusion.

“I don’t know. It seems so hard to believe any of this is real, I don’t know who to trust.” He let out a small laugh. “I think I can trust you and X!” Doc laughed slightly.

“I don’t know what to think about Iskall and Bdubs. What they said about Grian… it seemed so unnecessarily awful. I don’t want to believe that’s what they really think. It’s just so… messed up…” Doc shivered thinking about what Bdubs and Iskall had said when trying to defend themselves. Scar wrapped his arms over his shoulders, thinking the same thing as Doc.

Iskall couldn’t help but jump when he saw Mumbo move. His friend’s face moved to show visible discomfort.

“Hey, Mumbo?” Iskall whispered. X looked over, but stayed where he was, leaving them space. Doc and Scar didn’t even turn around. Iskall rubbed Mumbo’s shoulder in attempt to ease the discomfort. “You awake?” He asked. Mumbo opened his eyes slowly.

“Iskall?” He asked, closing his eyes again. “What’s up?” He asked, jokingly. Iskall chuckled quietly.

“You okay?” Iskall responded. Mumbo tried to sit up, but quickly stopped his efforts.

“Oh my word, I’m sore!” Mumbo laughed. Iskall let out a sigh of relief. He saw the slightest bit of hesitation and fear cross Mumbo’s face, but it was quickly gone. Mumbo sat up very slowly, trying not to strain his body too much. He laughed, but it almost sounded fake. He smiled at Iskall. “You look worried, what happened?” Iskall couldn’t help but laugh.

“We were hoping you could tell us!” He chuckled. Mumbo cocked his head.

“That’s gonna be a nope from me.” He said, smile faltering ever so slightly. “I can’t recall a single thing since I talked with X the other day.” Iskall’s smile fell and X walked over, hearing this.

“That was nearly two weeks ago.” X said, crossing his arms. Mumbo’s face fell as well.

“It feels like yesterday.” Mumbo said, quietly. Iskall grabbed Mumbo’s arm, pulling him to look him in the eye.

“You don’t remember anything? You’re sore, you’ve been missing…” Iskall’s eyes were filled with worry. Mumbo took a deep breath. Iskall could almost hear the gears turning in Mumbo’s head.

“No.” He answered, looking slightly away from Iskall’s eyes. It was hardly noticeable. Mumbo resituated himself on the bed and looked down. “All I remember was-” He took a second. “Was talking to X, and then went to work on my base. I thought I had just fallen asleep!” Mumbo seemed to regain his humor and laughed a bit. “You guys are looking at me like I lost my mind.”

“Because you kinda have.” X began to explain. “You went missing for two weeks and we found you down below your base.” Mumbo laughed again, smiling playfully.

“This is the lowest my base goes!” He looked at them, reading their expression carefully. No matter how laid back his face looked, Iskall could almost see past it. Or maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Mumbo’s stomach growled. He stood up flinching slightly at the soreness. “Well, thanks for saving me from whatever happened, appreciated it, really! I better be getting on; this storage system won’t be getting finished itself!!!”

“You’re rambling.” Iskall noted. “What happened?” He asked accusatory. Mumbo looked at him and smiled.

“I told you, I have no idea what you guys are talking about.” He backed up. Iskall stood and sighed.

“You’re not going to find your suit before you get back to work?” Iskall asked, shoving Mumbo lightly. Despite the pain, Mumbo laughed.

“Well, I don’t know where it is, do I?”

“I’ll help you look!” Iskall offered. Mumbo froze for a second.

“I don’t need any help!” His voice resonated with a second of panic. Iskall could tell Xisuma heard it too. “I think I can look around my own base alone. You see, I am an adult.” He said, quickly returning the life to his voice. Iskall smiled, faking a happy attitude.

“Well then, I won’t ask permission. Maybe it’s down where we found you.” Iskall started walking over but Mumbo grabbed him.

“I don’t think it is.” He said with gritted teeth in a low voice. Iskall looked back at him with an accusatory glare. He waved X away and he complied, joining Doc and Scar.

“For some reason I doubt you can’t remember this week.” Iskall said, pulling Mumbo closer. “I know Abomination is here, we need to get you away from it.” His voice was covered with worry and Mumbo looked away. He shook his head and looked back.

“ _He_ can help Grian…” Mumbo whispered, nearly inaudible. Iskall took a double take and before he could speak again, Mumbo continued. “He’s been helping me, and I’ve been helping him. He’s going to help me find the stone for Grian.” Iskall scoffed.

“Mumbo listen, Abomination is trying to _kill_ you.” He said with urgency. “You can’t stay here alone. Abomination will stop at nothing till you’ve done something you’ll regret and hurt yourself or anyone else. Saying it’ll help Grian is a lie. I know it, that _thing_ only lies. We are going to the shopping district right now, all of us.” He said the last sentence with conviction and loud enough for the other hermits to hear. Iskall grabbed Mumbo’s wrist. Mumbo sighed, knowing he couldn’t pull away if he tried. The adrenaline of waking up was wearing off and he started to feel the week of work he had put in.

They left Mumbo’s base, the heartbeat fading quickly in the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, someone needs to do something.


	15. Half Way-ish

Etho and Impulse sat with Grian and EX at Xisuma’s base. EX sighed.

“What makes you so confident he’ll come here soon?” He criticized. Impulse looked at the man in red armor.

“Why are you here anyways? Can’t you go find X yourself?” The redstoner asked. EX laughed.

“Well, you guys want to find him and so do I. I was looking for him when he unbanned me, but when he and a couple others entered this weird ruin with a golden heart, they disappeared off my radar. It was like something was blocking me. Then that stupid blackout happened and disabled my wings and everything else. I tracked it back to you fools.” He gestured to the three. “I figured you’d want to find my brother!” They blinked at him, unimpressed.

“So stop insulting our plan, it’s the only one we got.” Etho said standing. He started pacing. "I'm gonna see if I can get him over here.”

“And why did you wait to do that?!” EX scolded, looking over Etho’s Shoulder. Etho sighed.

“Because he was in the middle of something, I wanted to wait a little bit.”

“Oh.”

Etho typed out for X to come to his main tower when he could. Xisuma responded with a quick, “I’ll be right there” and soon enough, X had landed in the building. Immediately the color drained from his face seeing EX.

“Hey bro!” EX said, opening his arms for a hug. X walked past him and to Etho.

“What’s up?” He asked. Etho pointed his arm towards Grian, sitting on the landing stripe with his legs hanging off and head against the wall.

“You remember what happened when you first brought him back from his mansion. He did the thing.” Etho explained. Impulse nodded. X examined the dark stain on the back of Grian’s sweater. X cringed.

“I think it’s getting worse.” X stared absently out to the jungle. He moved to sit next to Grian.

“No hug?” EX asked, lower his arms. X ignored him. EX scoffed and crossed his arms.

“Hey, what’s up?” X asked. Grian sighed.

“Leave me alone.” He growled.

“You know I’m not going to.”

“It’s worth a shot.”

“How’s your back?” X moved to see Grian’s face. His eyes and nose were red. He turned too and looked at X.

“It hurts. It hurts so much. I lost the half of the stone I had. I’m trying to stay calm, but it’s hard. I just want everyone to feel this. Feel the burning soreness that’s always here. Feel this pain and discomfort.” Grian couldn’t help but raise his voice slightly and get angry. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s just this _need_ to make others hurt how I do. I’ve never felt this way before and I know it’s messed up, but I just want to share it. It would make me feel… _better._ ” Grian’s mouth curved upward slightly. X thought hard. How was he supposed to react to this? What Bdubs and Iskall were talking about had truth to it. It was unnerving to say the least.

“Have you noticed yourself acting on this… urge?” X asked with caution. Grian sighed.

“Well, I tried to punch Iskall twice, I blew up my mansion, I yelled at you guys. I just feel so… angry. Like for some reason, you guys are the reason I feel like this…” Grian looked X dead in the eyes. His pupils seemed to be in a cross shape and teal. Grian took deep breaths slowly. X couldn’t help but move away. Grian seemed to snap back to reality, eyes switching from crosses to normal circles he shook his head. His breathing quickened. He looked away and calmed himself down. “I’m sorry.” He whispered, not sounding scared or sad, but as if he didn’t know he was saying it, as if he was on autopilot.

“Grian, you’re okay.” X said with uncertainty. Was Grian okay?

“No I’m not. Iskall and Bdubs are right. I’m not safe to be around. Without that stone I’m a sociopath!” Grian said standing up. Etho and Impulse looked over. “I need to find the pieces of it!” He said with urgency and panic. X stood up and put his hands on Grian’s shoulders.

“Grian, half of it is gone and we have no idea where the other could be.” Xisuma said, defeat covering every inch of his words. Grian looked at him.

“What happens when I hurt someone?” Grian asked.

“ _If_ you hurt someone…” X corrected. “I don’t know. If that stone lets you live without that pain and, um… _mental problems_ , then it feels wrong to ban you if we have a solution.” X started to pace. EX watched him.

“You know pacing doesn’t help you.” He said, resting his head in his hand. X ignored him. “Hey, remember idiot, I have a radar, and sonar, and heat signature, and-”

“Shut up.” X said simply continuing to pace.

“Xisuma, you know it’s a _when_! I am going to hurt someone!” Grian looked at Etho and Impulse. “I _want_ to hurt someone…”

He stopped in front of EX and looked up at him. He took off his helmet and ripped EX’s off his head and swapped them. Etho, Impulse, and Grian couldn’t get a good look at either of their faces. They sighed, disappointed. EX stumbled back a little bit. Xisuma put his hands to the side of the helmet and started pressing buttons and toggling gears as if it was muscle memory. He looked around the room, scanning it over and over as he changed settings. “Ah.” He breathed when he set the helmet correctly. “I’m going to borrow this. Thank you.” X walked away from EX.

“You’re leaving me to be a bee boy? Really? Not even going to give me the matching armor?” X didn’t respond. EX sighed.

“I’ll look around the shopping district and Grian’s mansion with the helmet. You guys go meet up with Iskall, Doc, Mumbo, and Scar at town hall.” X turned to EX and looked at him. “Stay out of trouble.” He jumped out of the tower and flew off. The three hermit looked amongst each other.

“Can-” Etho looked at impulse. “Can you make it?” He asked Grian. He responded with a laugh.

“Sure, let’s go.”

* * *

Bdubs rushed up the steps of town hall and looked in. The mycelium was still there. He sighed and walked further in. Jellie followed him closely. They walked into Scar’s office. Jellie made herself comfortable on Scar’s lap. Doc, Iskall, and Mumbo stood in the room.

“You called?” He asked. Seeing who was there, this meeting probably had nothing to do with town hall. Scar let out his best ‘apology video sigh’ TM and gestured for Bdubs to take a seat. Bdubs did so.

“Do you know anything about Abomination?” He asked.

“Oh! I know!” EX said poking his head in the room. Scar ignored him. Bdubs gulped. EX was pulled out and the door closed.

“Well, it is the first abomination. It was messed up in all kinds of ways, no empathy, no concern for others wellbeing, all sorts of awful stuff.” Bdubs looked at Doc for some sort of back up or answers for the questions in his head. “Super dangerous.” He added. Scar nodded.

“Do you know how to get rid of him?” Scar asked, voice tensing up. Bdubs froze.

“Is it here!?” He asked, panicked. Scar looked at him. “No, I don’t know! He was banished, no one knows where. Well, I guess we know now…”

“So there is nothing we can do?” Scar asked, professionalism fading in turn for worry. Bdubs looked around the room and landed his eyes on Mumbo.

“Well as long as someone’s always with the person targeted, Abomination can’t do much. It doesn’t like being outnumbered.” He offered. Iskall smiled.

“Sounds good!” Mumbo jolted a little bit, half asleep.

“What? No…” He said looking at Iskall. He was met with a smile. He sighed, unable to find the strength to fight. “Does anyone have something to eat?” He asked. Scar tossed him a couple carrots, smiling a little himself.

The small group walked out to meet Etho, Impulse, Grian, and EX. Mumbo looked up at EX.

“Nice helmet?” He said with uncertainty.

“At least he said something…” EX growled. They walked out to the stairs of town hall for more room to talk. Scar looked over the main street. The wind blew lightly and the clouds traveled swiftly. Scar let out a long sigh and turned to face EX.

“You said you knew something about Abomination?” He asked with _such rigor_. EX looked happy that someone was talking to him.

“Well, you see, mortals, I studied observer history in my time in h-e-l-l and I found out quite a bit! Abomination has been a part of worker folklore since the 1850s, when a worker found the old court records. The first offence of Abomination was the murder of a young worker-mechanic in 1780. Year later it was exiled. All of a sudden, the bad reputation of shadows made sense! The mixing of worker DNA with anything other than observers leads to an absolutely horrible person, like Grian!” Grian looked at him.

“Dude, I don’t even know you!” Grian said, offended. EX smiled.

“There are very few instances of Abominations, only two known right now, but there is one case that someone recorded.” He leaned over as if telling a scary story. Iskall and Bdubs eyes lit up.

“I know about this.” Iskall said. “How is this going to help us?” Ex smiled.

“The diary gives us a day by day run down of this guy’s thoughts. Including the one before his death.” The sky seemed to darken. “You can read his descent into depression and madness. He starts talking daily about how worthless he is and how Abomination is being so graceful to him. Abomination’s victims start to treat Abomination like a god and themselves like wastes of life. This gives us a map to follow to tell how affected someone is! Then we’ll know if we are to late…”

They turned to Mumbo. He was leaning back, asleep. Grian looked at Iskall and Doc.

“Have you guys noticed anything?” He asked. Doc looked at Iskall.

“Well, he said that Abomination was helping him, but he didn’t seem too discouraged or insane.” Iskall said, looking to EX for clarification.

“How long have they been around each other?” He asked.

“Two weeks.” Scar said.

“That’s strange,” EX started pacing. “In the diary, it had only been two days before he started bad self-talk. Maybe he just has yet to show you. It does seem like he’s been asleep this whole time.” Grian stood up and walked over to his friend and shook him slightly.

“Mumbo… Mumbo!” Grian shook his friend harder. Mumbo woke up and yawned and looked at everyone.

“What?” He asked.

“So, um, casual question… how much worth do you have in your opinion?” Iskall asked. Mumbo shot him a confused look.

“What’s EX doing here? What am I doing here? Why are you guys all looking at me?” He tried to step back but ended up falling down the steps.

“Mumbo?” Etho asked looking down. Mumbo looked up.

“I’m good.” He groaned. Grian looked at Impulse. “Just give me a sec.” EX sighed.

“You guys are just going to leave him on the floor like that?” He asked with conviction. Scar looked at EX and then walked down to pick up Mumbo, leaning him against the stairs.

“Do you guys know where Xisuma is?” He asked looking up. Grain nodded.

“He’s looking for the stone with whoever that is’ helmet.” He said leaning back over the railing. Etho nodded. EX looked at him.

“They’ve said my name! Are you that stupid? I picked up your name within five minutes for meeting you!” No one seemed to hear him. Just on time, Xisuma landed with grace and went straight to his brother. He swapped the helmets still too fast for anyone to pick up features.

“Grian, I found it!” He said, smiling with his eyes. Grian lit up and took it from Xisuma.

“X, I can’t thank you enough!” Grian said, rolling the stone in his hands. X beamed. Ex walked over to them.

“You can thank me! After all, he wouldn’t have been able to find that silly little rock without _my_ helmet!” Grian looked at X and mouthed, ‘who is that guy?’ X shook his head. ‘Don’t pay him attention.’ He responded silently. Grian nodded, averting his eyes from EX. Scar left Mumbo and came to the top of the stairs.

“Okay, so now that we have you stone, are you going to stop doing that… _thing_?” He asked. Grian looked at him, almost terrified.

“I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pssssed  
> I'm back  
> Did yah miss me?
> 
> Boys, gents,  
> The plan was not simple...  
> But the execution was perfect...


	16. That's a Shame

Iskall and Grian made their way to the treasure island to talk with Mumbo. X took EX back to his base and everyone else left as well. For some reason they decided to leave Grian and Iskall with Mumbo, Scar claiming, “They’ll work it out.” The walk was extremely uncomfortable, unusually quiet between the friends. Mumbo wasn’t meaning to, being too tired and hungry to carry on the simplest of conversations. Iskall and Grian, on the other hand, could hardly glance at each other.

Iskall took in a deep sigh. He knew that Grian being an abomination hardly changed anything, but Iskall couldn’t help but see a dangerous problem: one that couldn’t be solved with the half a stone. Was it the right choice to use it for themselves? Iskall closed his eyes, telling himself over and over again that he made the right decision. He still felt sick, as if the potion hadn’t done anything for him.

Grian knew that he was starting to freak everyone out. He was freaking himself out. This had only happened once before and it was the thing that alerted the observers and killed his mom. His mom gave him the stone and told him to hide. He shook his head, pushing back the foggy memories. Grian also knew that Iskall was right in his worries, at least without the stone. He wished he knew where the other half was. He racked his head to find where he dropped it.

The three sat down on the stone platform.

“So, anyone got food?” Mumbo asked, leaning on his knees. Grian looked at him.

“Don’t you have any?” He asked. Mumbo proceeded to poor stacks and stacks of cobblestone from his inventory. Iskall’s mouth dropped.

“What in the world?” He asked. Mumbo stared forward blankly. He sighed.

“What do you think I was doing for a whole week?” He said. Grian slowly handed him some golden carrots. Iskall put a hand on Mumbo’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” He asked, sincerely. Mumbo leaned back and closed his eyes.

“I’m such a mess, aren’t I” He laughed. Iskall and Grian met worried faces.

“No you’re not!” Grian called.

“You are very well put together!” Iskall added. Mumbo sat up a bit and looked at them, confused. They smiled. He laid back down.

“Listen, guys, I wanted to talk.” His voice was darker than it usually was. “I know you guys don’t really like each other right now. Iskall, you were trying to ban Grian, and Grian, you pulled your sword on him. I want you guys to know that, even if you guys aren’t friends anymore, I’ll still hang with you guys, even if it has to be separate.” He let out a long sigh as punctuation. Iskall clenched his teeth. Grian rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, if you guys would even want to hang out with someone like me…”

“I’m sorry, dude, I-” Iskall started but Mumbo started talking again.

“Maybe I’m just being overdramatic, but I feel like a bad friend because two of my closest friends are kinda like enemies. I know it’s not my fault.” He sat up. “I know this is a cultural thing that I have no idea about, but it still kinda feels like that, you know? Something you know is wrong, but you can’t help but believe the wrong thing. As a friend of both of you, I want to be honest about how I feel and in no way am I forcing you two to be friends. Just want to be open with you.” Mumbo looked down and played with his hand in his lap. Iskall and Grian looked at each other, conflicted.

“Mumbo, it’s really not like we…” Grain couldn’t finish the sentence because he knew it wasn’t the whole truth. Iskall knew it too. Even if he were to accept Grian as an Abomination, they wouldn’t be able to get along as good. It was an awful situation. Mumbo rubbed his face.

“It’s something we’ll have to work through. You don’t need to worry, you’re the best friend we could’ve asked for.” Iskall finished. Grian nodded, confirming the statement. They continued to explain themselves, but Mumbo stopped listening. He was paying attention to something entirely different.

“ _Can you trust them?”_ A voice lingered in his head. _“They lied about everything. You can’t even get those two to look each other in the eye.”_ Mumbo could hear anemic breathing and an irregular heartbeat. Mumbo’s own breathing quickened. He could feel the pumping and churning. He could see the creature Iskall transformed into. Hear the agonizing scream and painful cry. The darkness. The stillness. _“You don’t deserve this.”_ Mumbo couldn’t tell if the voice was his head was his own thoughts or Abomination’s voice, but it stung. It was a leap in emotions, and logic should have stepped in, but it didn’t. His eyes started to water. He pushed his hands further.

Iskall and Grian shut up when they heard Mumbo take a strained breath. Was he crying?

“Mumbo, are you okay?” Grian asked, rubbing his friend’s shoulder. Iskall bent down and tried to look at the redstoner’s face.

“Dude, what’s up?” He asked quietly. Mumbo leaned down more and wrapped his arms around his legs. “Mumbo?” Iskall asked again.

 _“It’s almost too late, you need to finish the portal!”_ Abomination’s voice called from Mumbo’s head. He squeezed himself tightly, trying to block out the criticism. _“Nothing will ever be the same if you don’t finish that portal! It will be your fault whether anyone knows that or not! You’ll have to live with that forever.”_ Mumbo sucked in a deep breath and stood up suddenly.

“I have to go.” He said, voice cracking. He wiped off his face. “I need to go.” Iskall and Grian stood up to.

“Okay, we’ll go with you!” Grian offered. Mumbo pushed them both away.

“NO!” He yelled, not even trying to hide the breaking. “I need to go alone! Why do you want to talk to me anyways?”

“We can’t let you do that!” Iskall said, trying to step closer. Mumbo backed away, slowly equipping his elytra. “Mumbo…” Iskall took a step back. “Just think about it, we are here to help you, we don’t want you to hurt yourself.” Grian also took a step back, putting his hands out as if to calm an animal. Nonetheless, Mumbo shot into the air with a rocket and Grian and Iskall were quick to go after him.

Grian gestured to Iskall that he was going to go ahead of Mumbo and Iskall nodded. Grian swapped his elytra for his dusty teal wings and flew at light speeds. Mumbo saw Grian go faster and he dived for the nether portal. Iskall chased after him. As soon as Mumbo was through, he flew towards his base, weaving through the tunnels, hoping to lose Iskall, but he could not. Iskall seemed to be only a step behind him. The redstoner looked behind himself to see Iskall right there.

“Mumbo! Look out!” Iskall yelled and Mumbo quickly turned attention forward. It was in vain because Mumbo hit the side of the tunnel and came to a screeching halt. He fell onto the rails and slid on his side. Grian came shortly from Mumbo’s portal and landed swiftly and gracefully.

“OH MY GOSH!” He yelled running over to Mumbo. Iskall knelt beside him and lifted up his face carefully.

“Dude, oh no, are you okay? Can you hear me?” Iskall said. Mumbo could hear him, but he couldn’t respond if he wanted to. His face and arms burned. His side ached and his legs felt numb. He felt a cold drop of blood run down his face. His breathing was stuttering. His vision got foggy and ringing got louder in his ears. One last call sounded in his head, _“You’re too late.”_ Mumbo couldn’t stay awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO! I was thinking... if CG5 is Dream... doesn't that make 8-bitryan... Xisuma?  
> Anyways, I was looking over this chapter and I thought, "Hey, no one will like this!" AND I SMILED  
> Oh yeah, it just goes don't hill very fast next chapter.  
> It's like a slope of 9999999999999999999999999
> 
> PhILza MiNEcRafT iS sO GreAT, He'S ThE GrEAtiSt MAn I'Ve EvER MEAEAEEAEEAEAEET  
> -An Intellectual


	17. Darkness Is Suffocating

_Mumbo lifted his heavy eyes and looked around the room he was in. It was dark and white, but the shape was organic. If it were made out of wood, mumbo would have assumed he was in Iskall’s omega tree. He sat up, surprisingly unscarred by his unfortunate landing. He stood, looking down at himself. He was in his suit, and it looked nice. He noticed a mirror and walked over. His hair and mustache were nice and his face was clean and he looked awake and healthy as ever. He smiled. Maybe that was all a bad dream._

_He walked to the door, opening it and taking in the morning light. He’d gotten up on time too. He was in Iskall’s tree all right, it was just all white concrete now. He didn’t mind though. The space felt clean and breathable. The four beacons made every wall gleam with blue light that contrasted perfectly with golden sun. Mumbo took a satisfied breath and approached where he heard talking, laughing. He smiled even wider. That had to be Grian and Iskall getting along!_

_Mumbo came to the talking and walked into a bakery type room. He stopped. Grian was not his usual self, neither was Iskall. Iskall was in the observer form he had shown a week before and Grian looked like Abomination. Mumbo backed away. They turned to him._

_"𝙹⍑_ _⍑ᒷ_ _|| ᒲ⚍ᒲ_ _ʖ𝙹_ _, ||_ _𝙹⚍_ _ᔑ_ _∴ᔑꖌᒷ_ _?” Grian said. He sounded like he was smiling. Iskall stood up and walked over to him._

 _“_ _∴⍑ᔑ_ _ℸ_ _̣ 'ᓭ_ _∴∷𝙹_ _リ_ _⊣_ _?_ _∴⍑_ _||_ _↸𝙹_ _||_ _𝙹⚍_ _ꖎ_ _𝙹𝙹ꖌ_ _ᓭ_ _𝙹_ _ᔑ_ _⎓∷ᔑ╎_ _↸_ _?” Mumbo backed up more and ran out, not looking where he was going. He fell into the center of the tree, falling into a dark cave, textures fully realized. The diamond pile flew past him and he was about to hit the glass at the bottom, but it wasn't glass. It was fog._

_Mumbo landed in a mine cart and started moving along an old rail. His head spun as the cart got faster and faster. He wasn’t really for it to suddenly stop and throw him off and into a dark, seemingly endless pit._

Mumbo’s eyes shot open. The darkness was suffocating. He took a deep breath and rubbed his head. It was spinning and ached. Everything felt like it was on fire. Mumbo realized he wasn’t in his base, but Iskall’s omega tree. He was laying on a bed in a dark room of a root. He felt his head again, it was wrapped up and sung. His arms had wraps on them and so did his torso. He sat up. His legs were sore and his right pant leg was rolled up to make room for a wrap. His white undershirt and black shoes were set on a branch. The shirt was torn and bloody and the shoes no longer shined. For once, the silence around him was comforting. He tried to stand up very slowly so as not to make him too dizzy, but the effort was in vain. He sat for at least five minutes before finally standing. He limped over to the door and opened it. The evening light covered only the tips of the tree. The blue light of the beacons was the only thing that gave him direction.

“Hey dude.” A voice said to him. Mumbo jumped and spun around. Iskall and Grian walked out of the storage room, standing away from him. He felt dizzy from turning so fast. He stumbled forward a bit and Grain steadied him.

“Come on, you need something to eat.” Grian said. His voice was dark and quiet. Mumbo let him wrap and arm around him and take his over to the steps to the storage platform. Iskall handed him water and bread. Mumbo took the water and drank it, spilling some on himself in the process. He couldn’t help his hand from shaking. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until he had the water. The redstoner just wanted to lay down again. Every part of his body ached and he felt like he’d throw up any second. He slowly took the bread, but he knew it was going to be hard to eat. His stomach churned, ready to push anything that came down back up. Still he took a bite. He swallowed carefully.

“Mumbo, how do you feel?” Iskall asked, voice also quiet and cautious. Mumbo looked at him. He didn’t have the energy to say anything. Iskall looked at Grian and then back to Mumbo. “Look, dude, something’s… wrong.” Iskall hesitated.

“Is everyone okay?” Mumbo asked, his voice strained and quiet. Iskall nodded and covered his mouth with his hand. Grian rubbed his shoulder.

“It’s about Abomination…” Grian continued. “We don’t know where it is and…” Grian trailed off. He stared forward into nothing. He shook his head. Iskall picked up the sentence for him.

“We think it’s gotten inside you. Like telling you things, things that aren’t true.” Iskall looked Mumbo dead in the eyes. “You have to tell us if you have any intrusive thoughts. We need to keep this out of your head as best as possible.” Mumbo looked down at the bread in his hands and closed his eyes. He felt so sick he doubted he could even notice Abomination’s voice. Maybe that’s why he didn’t say anything when he heard, _“You put yourself into this situation.”_

“I feel sick.” Mumbo wheezed. Iskall helped him up.

“You should probably go back to sleep.” He said. He took Mumbo back to the dark room and laid him in the bed. “We’ll check on you in a little bit, okay?” Mumbo nodded and as Iskall was about to close the door, he said,

“Iskall, are you and Grian getting along?” Iskall looked back at him. He smiled.

“Yeah, you don’t need to worry.” Iskall closed the door. He sighed. Grian was standing there.

“What do we do if Abomination is there?” He asked. Iskall shook his head.

“I wish I knew.” He stepped away from the door and rubbed the back of his neck. “We could try to trick him out?” He offered. Grian rubbed his face. Iskall looked back at the door. The other side seemed to have darkened. It felt like there was just this strange darkness around Mumbo. Someone landed on the platform beside them. It was Scar.

“How is he?” Scar asked, his voice brighter than either Iskall or Grian.

“Sick.” Grian said simply. “He sounded horse and looked pale… more than normal.” Scar nodded. He turned his attention to the door. Something was coming from under the door.

“What is that?” Scar panicked. Iskall and Grian looked to see a dark substance climbing from the cracks in the door. It looked like shadows, but nothing was there to cast them.

“Oh no, what the heck is going on?” Grian said. He pulled his sword out and stepped closer to the shadows. The soft glow of the enchanted weapon seemed to drive the darkness back. Grian reached for the door knob and pulled the door open.

It was pitch black. It looked like he was staring at a piece of black paper. No light left or entered the room. It looked solid, impenetrable. Grian, fascinated, reached his hand in. It was cold, his hand felt like it was freezing off, and still he kept it in.

“Grian,” Iskall called, “Be careful.” Grian turned only halfway to nod, before facing the darkness again. The waving, purple light of the sword didn’t seep through the darkness, instead getting swallowed whole. Grain stepped in and his body froze. He felt his lungs held still and he couldn’t breathe. He could not speak either. All Grian did was look forward.

“Grian? Grian?” Scar called. The darkness squeezed Grian, he couldn’t move. Claustrophobia took control of every thought passing through his head. “Grian!” Scar pulled the builder out of the room and Grian took a deep. His eyes started to water as feelings returned to his hands and legs.

“What was that?” Was all he could mutter in a quiet voice. 

“Did you see anything?” Iskall asked, joining him to peer into the depths. Grian shook his head.

“It was like looking into the void,” He explained. “Like nothing was there at all.” Scar looked in at a safe distance behind Iskall and Grian.

“Like what happens when you do that…thing?” Scar asked. Grian shook out his trance.

“Naw, like something was covering my eyes. I could only see my arms, nothing past it.” Grian tried to wrap his own head around what he was saying. It felt impossible to describe. Iskall closed the door. He hesitated to let go of the knob.

“How are we supposed to help Mumbo when it’s this bad?” He looked defeated. Grain’s face turned sour again. Scar’s eyes reflected Iskall’s worry. “Abomination has Mumbo. He’s gotten a reaction out of us and he’s not stopping. He has us hanging by a thread. He’s got leverage. We’ve got nothing.”

* * *

Xisuma landed on the bay of this main tower and turned to see EX land beside him.

“Time to get rid of you.” X said without resolve. EX looked at him.

“What? You can’t do that! I’ll be good I promise!” He pleaded. X sighed, grumbling something under his breath.

“You’ve hardly been on for a day and you’ve already used X-ray. Really? You’ll be good?” He started clearing out his enderchest. He dramatically turned to EX and gave him the most unimpressed face he could muster. EX stepped back. “You’re not going to ‘be good’ and we both know that.” He returned to his work.

“I helped you guys with the Abomination guy! I’m smart, you could use me on your team!” He said, leaning over X. Xisuma looked at him again.

“I’ve already had to redirect worry from other hermits about seeing your name! Do you know what you being here is doing to the load of work I already have to deal with? Not even to mention all this weird observer stuff!” X started pacing. He covered his visor with his hands.

“Well, Mr. Admin, sir, At least you can talk to me about it. If I’m good at one thing, it’s ranting too!” EX said proudly. X looked at him.

“Your right!” X said. EX beamed.

“Really!”

“I shouldn’t be ranting like this!” EX’s shoulders fell. “I’m incredibly lucky to be working with the friends I have, and even though it’s a lot of work, and I don’t really know what’s going on, I shouldn’t whine about it. I just need to look forward and help my friends!”

“That was the most ‘friendship is magic’ sh*t I have heard from you in a long time.” EX leaned in the landing bay. X rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying, you can’t say this to anyone else. I’m the only one who’s ever seen your face for Pete’s sake! Can’t say I liked it, but hey…” EX shrugged as punctuation. Xisuma sighed and looked at EX. He couldn’t just push him away this fast, could he?

“One week. Seven days, starting now.” He said. “Screw up too bad and you’re out early. Got it?” EX nodded excitedly.

“Really? A whole week to prove I’m worth your time?” EX wondered about the things he could do. X looked at him.

“Not only to me, but to the server, be an active member. Don’t make me change my mind.” X lifted his communicator. EX froze.

“NO! You’re good, you’re good!” He shook his hand in front of him. X smiled.

“Go on… prove me wrong.” He offered. EX smiled too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mumbo's dream was inspired by two main things: Feather Weight and Gameknight999  
> If you know what the ladder is, I like you, and I would like to talk to about the things that ruined my favorite childhood book series.  
> Anyways, you guys should read Feather Weight by DoctorSiren. It's a roller coaster of emotion but boy is it good.
> 
> So, I'ma say something right now; I hold Hermitcraft Fanfiction and the real Hermitcraft in completely different regards. And the lord above forbid a Hermit reads this, but in case they do;  
> This is all because of inspiration. I use the characters here because I find the possibilities fascinating  
> Just consider this one more drop in the bucket timeline that is real having the Many Worlds Interpretations is real.
> 
> Well, enough existential stuff, hope everyone has a great day!!!


	18. Because That's What It Is

“Bdubs, you’re really starting to peeve me off.” Doc said as they landed at the half building. Bdubs ignored him.

“Grian’s dangerous! You’ve seen him!” He yelled. Doc rolled his eyes.

“He wouldn’t be if you did use that stupid rock to… what did you use it for anyways?”

“I was going to die if I didn’t use it! And it’s not like we could’ve just chipped a little off and given it back to Grian, no, I needed a lot of it!” Bdubs looked away. “He probably stole it anyway. It’s not easy to get one and they would have noticed if he picked one up at his local pharmacy.” Doc’s head was full of questions, but only one needed answering immediately,

“What the heck is your problem with him? I don’t get it. You say he’s dangerous and that’s why you hate him, but that makes no sense!” Doc paused to take a deep breath. “If you still wanted to like him and _that’s_ what’s keeping you from it, why are you so eager to ban him? You hate him because his parents aren’t the same species. You pretend it’s not obvious, but you are wrong. That's so messed up! Do you hear me?” Doc’s voice had nearly raised to a yell. Bdubs didn’t turn back around.

“Don’t you understand how messed up a human-worker is? You’re trying to force your ideas onto me, but have you ever considered you’re the one in the wrong?” Bdubs finally turned to face his friend. “There is a reason Abominations are called what they are. When observers first found out about Abomination, they didn’t treat it any different. It was Abomination’s own need to hurt people that turned him into an outcast! We learned from our mistakes of letting it into our society, we’re never doing that again!” Doc stepped back. He scoffed, laughing a little bit.

“You’re freaking crazy. Grian found a solution to his disabilities, and you took it away from him!”

“It was its own fault it broke and it blew up his mansion!”

“But if both pieces were intact and you’d still choose to see him as Grian, you’d just see an abomination!”

“Because that’s what it is! It’s dangerous and manipulative! It should’ve been banned! It cheated to get what it has!”

“You’re calling him an ‘it’!”

“Because that’s what _it_ is!”

Doc stopped. He clenched his fists and took deep breaths. Doc couldn’t wrap his head around it. He turned from Bdubs and headed to his half of the mansion. Bdubs started to speak, but Doc cut him off.

“Don’t say anything. I…” He was speechless. He walked away.

Doc got into his nether portal even though he just returned home. He went to the shopping district again and started wandering around. He tried his best to sift through his thoughts.

“Doc? You there?” A voice took him from his thoughts and he turned to face the speaker. False and Wels were standing in front of False’s nether shop. Doc sighed.

“Hey dudes.” He said with lackluster. False laughed.

“No one’s really seen you around, what have you been up to?” She asked. Doc rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’ve been busy with my base; you know? Don’t want to live in half a house for the whole season.” He lied. Wels nodded.

“This season feels like it’s hardly been a while!” He said. False laughed again.

“Yeah, because you literally just got here!” Doc tried to walk away. “And where are you think you’re going?” Doc froze and turned back.

“Got a lot of things to buy for my base.” He lied again. He felt pretty good about his lying skills, able to recover from slips pretty well, but today wasn’t his day, was it?

“I thought you said you were going to get all of the resources yourself? You know, part of your… _G.O.A.T._ plans.” She corrected. Doc coughed.

“Um, well yeah, but, uh…”

“Go on, now you’ve made me curious!” She walked down to him. “You can’t just stutter and expect me not to ask. Does it have to do with Grian and X? No one’s seen them either, or Mumbo for that matter…”

“X doesn’t want me saying anything. Sorry.” Doc turned and walked away.

* * *

Cub walked into the town hall and started taking down the mycelium. Had Xisuma banned Grian? Did he really see EX log on? His head buzzed and the tedious task off removing mycelium was kinda what he needed. Everything X had told him wandered his mind.

 _“I don’t know how Bdubs and Iskall got the footage, but it looked real enough.”_ X had told him. He hadn’t followed up with Cub since he took Grian, and that had been maybe a week and a half ago. And then his mind began to drift to the injury that Grain had sustained from the explosion of his mansion. The visceral detail made him curious, so much so that Cub found himself standing still just thinking about it. He shivered. If that’s how Xisuma was able to describe it when he was in such a frantic state, Cub let ideas and images float in his mind.

“Cub?” Someone asked from the doorway of the town hall. Cub turned to see Joe and Keralis.

“Oh hey you two!” He greeted warmly, pushing gory sights from his head. Keralis looked at his communicator for a second.

“Has Xisuma told you anything about… anything?” He asked. Cub looked at them and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, he was talking to me about things going on with Grain, but I don’t know if he wanted me saying anything…” Cub responded. Joe nodded.

“But that’s the information we need… See, Etho told us about some suspicious things going on, and we’ve all noticed the lack of certain hermits. We have to figure this out.” He clarified. Two other hermits ran up.

“You guys are here about that too?” False asked, Wels right behind her.

“Um, well…” Cub felt weird about saying this. It felt out of left field. “X was thinking about banning someone. It’s all up in the air, we haven’t talked since he first brought it up with me a couple weeks ago.”

“Grian…” Joe said, eyes growing.

“Or Bdubs, he said some shifty things the other day!” Wels added. Keralis looked at Cub for conformation. Cub thought carefully. I mean there was no real harm telling them, He trusted them not to blow this out of proportion.

“It’s Grian. X was shown footage of him doing suspicious things and he was talking about something else going on. He hasn’t said anything to me since.”

“You’re kidding me? Grian?” False gasped.

“That’s what I thought!” Joe said, stepping forward. “Etho told Keralis and I about the blackouts that have been happening.” Wels stepped forward quickly, joining Joe.

“Have you guys not seen Grian’s mansion?” He asked quietly. They looked at him, his eyes frozen with a glint of fear. “It was blown to the ground. It was nothing like how I thought. They’re trying to cover something up. This was no simple act of griefing. This was advanced.” They all gave each other looks of concern.

“Why would they want to cover that up? How in the world did Impulse get wrapped up into it? He doesn’t normally talk to Doc and Scar, and now they’re mysteriously missing? Some of the people involved in this don’t make sense to be in this.” Keralis said, turning to look over the main street. Stress walked out of the portal and looked up.

“Hey Keralis!” She waved. The four other hermits ran to see who it was. She stopped and looked at them. “Hey Cub, False, Joe, and Wels also!” She waved again. “What are you guys up to? A secret HEP meeting?” She joked. They did see the humor right now.

“Stress, do you know anything about Grian’s whereabouts?” Cub asked and Stress froze.

“Um well, not right now. I haven’t seen him since…” She stopped herself. False pointed at her.

“X told you not to say anything, didn’t he?” She accused more than asked. Stress backed up and looked around.

“He didn’t want anyone to worry.” She said. Wels nodded, stepping back and rubbing his chin.

“But we already know about Grian’s mansion getting blown to kingdom come. Did X already ban Grian?” He asked without coming forward.

“No, he hasn’t!” Stress said, backing up more. “I don’t know; I just saw Grian!” The five hermits looked at each other.

“We need to ask Xisuma about this and get answers.” Cub said, starting walking down the steps to the nether portal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because that's what it is :)
> 
> By the way, have you done something with your hair? It looks very nice.


	19. Abomination's Seeds

Mumbo woke up in the small room again and rubbed his head. The burning was still there and so was the soreness. Who knew mining for who knows how long non-stop made you feel like your body would fall apart? He slowly sat up, every part of his body yelling at him not to. His throat felt awful and he couldn’t speak. He was dizzy, he couldn’t see straight. The room was pitch black; it must be late at night. He wondered if Iskall would be awake.

Mumbo slowly stood up and walked to the door. He opened it to be blinded by the sun, he instinctively pulled up his arm, only to be met with more burning. Why was it so dark in that room?

Mumbo tried to call for Iskall but only wheezing came out. He felt like he could hardly stand. He leaned against the wall of the tree and closed his eyes.

 _“I’ll break you down and build up someone new.”_ Abomination’s voice echoed in Mumbo’s head.

“Iskall…” Mumbo tried to yell. He pushed himself on the wall and slowly slid down. The ruff bark scraped his bare back, creating deep cuts. “Iskall…”

 _"He can’t hear you. No one can. You are all alone and they could care less.”_ Abomination’s eye was all Mumbo could see. He thought he heard someone, but there was no telling. His ears were ringing and his head was spinning.

“Dude!” Iskall’s voice and face broke through the trance. “Mumbo, are you okay?” He grabbed Mumbo’s face and looked at him.

“I’m fine…” He wheezed. Iskall’s eye was full of worry. He picked up Mumbo and brought him to the storage room. He sat Mumbo against the wall and handed him water.

“You’re gonna have to drink and eat something.” Iskall got out a piece of bread. Mumbo drank the water, eating the bread shortly after. He started feeling better almost instantly. He gone so long without eating or drinking, he hadn’t realized how desperate he was for the necessities. Iskall stood up and opened a chest, walking back to Mumbo with white wraps. He removed the old ones and replaced them. Iskall turned away and coughed into his arm, quickly going from small coughs to full out heaving. “Sorry… I’ve gotten a bad cough recently.” Iskall tried to joke as he looked into his arm to see blood. He ignored it and sat down in front of Mumbo.

“How long have I been asleep?” Mumbo asked, voice coming back a bit. Iskall looked at the sun and back to his friend.

“A day and half. I was going to wake you up this morning but I wanted to let you sleep.” Iskall rested his arm on his leg. “We know that Abomination’s trying to hurt you. We’re going to help you.” Mumbo looked down and put his arms around his chest.

“I was too slow… I’m sorry…” He choked back on tears. Iskall pulled Mumbo into a hug.

“You have nothing to be sorry about.” Iskall said, squeezing his friend.

“I was gonna help Grian, I don’t want anything bad to happen…” Mumbo hugged Iskall back.

“Dude, nothing’s going to happen. We have this under control.”

 _“They can’t morn you if they don’t know your dead_.” Abomination’s voice nearly cut off Iskall’s and Mumbo looked up quickly. He felt the eye of the creature resting on him, digging into his head like a drill. He hugged Iskall harder, trying to make himself feel safe, but that didn’t happen. Somehow he felt more alone and afraid than ever before.

“Go away…” Mumbo cried. Iskall looked at him. “Please…leave me alone…” Iskall thought he might have been talking to him, but when he tried to pull away, Mumbo only held on to him tighter. _‘He must be talking to Abomination. Can only he hear it?’_ Iskall thought.

 _“It’ll been an endless search that will eventually lead them to sorrow. Weather they find your body or not, you would have been long gone before they even considered your death.”_ Mumbo squeezed as tight as he could, as if that would push the intrusive statements from his head. All he could hear was Abomination’s voice, at least it felt that way.

“Don’t let go.” Mumbo said in a more grounded voice. “Don’t let him kill me!” Mumbo yelled. Iskall looked around for any sign that Abomination was near, but nothing stood out. His heart sank when the realization hit him. Abomination was inside of Mumbo, like he assumed, but there was no way to get him out. He was fighting an uphill battle that he wasn’t sure he could win. No, he was completely sure it was hopeless.

* * *

Grian had been working on his mansion for a day now. With only one half of the stone, he couldn’t help but get mad at his inability to recognize blocks. Several times he had sat completely still trying to rap his head around the gray blocks in his hand. He mostly just tried to match colors and blocks with one's around, but it had ended up very poorly.

He stepped back to see his progress. He was pretty sure that that was a window, but from that angle it was anybody’s guess. Grian crossed his arms. He’s gotten one window out of maybe twenty. Or was it thirty? He couldn’t even remember what his own base looked like! He tossed the smooth gray blocks on the ground and kicked them. He took a deep breath.

Grain knew it was in his best interest not to get frustrated, that’s what got him here in the first place, but it was hard not to. His brain refused to understand diagonal lines and circles, and just failed to recognize stairs as roofs. Even when he knew he should place certain blocks somewhere, he couldn’t for the life of him understand why. Why in the world would he put the _stairs_ _upside down_ on _top_ of the _window_? It made his head spin.

“Grian, you down there?” Scar called as he flew over the crater. Grian waved and Scar crashed beside him. He stood up quickly. “What have you been--- ah?” Scar looked at the window Grian had been crafting for the past day. Scar scrunched up his face. Grian smiled.

“What do you think?” He asked, sounded pleased with himself. Scar gulped.

“Um, It’s… _great_ …” Scar nodded, faking a smile. Grian ran in front of where the stairs had been rebuilt.

“I’ve been working for a whole day! I think I’ve gotten a lot done!” He said, turning around, soaking in the glory of his building. Scar scrunched up his face. What the heck happened to Grian’s building skills? Guess he did say he wasn’t as great a builder as everyone thought. “You know, when Doc tried to get me to build in front of everyone, I felt so much anxiety, but it’s kinda relaxing when no one’s watching.” Grian looked at it with Scar, sighed and let his smile fall. Scar put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s good.” He said. Grian shook his head and laughed a little.

“I’m never going to be as good as I used to be.” He said with sadness lining his voice. He looked away. “Building is the only thing that really made me… _me._ What am I without it?” he laughed again. “It’s not like I can learn anything new either… This is what I get for being an abomination I guess?” Grian smiled at Scar. Scar let out a small chuckle and shoved Grian.

“Stop, you know your building has nothing to do with your personality!” He retorted. Grian huffed.

“Except it kinda does.” He explained, straightening his sweater. “You see, my stupid brain chooses to not only take my skills away, but also gives me a stupid short fuse, which makes me an idiot sometimes.” Scar scoffed with a smile. Grian laughed a little too.

“Listen, Grian, if it’s the last thing we do, it’s find you a new rock thing!” Scar put his hands on his hips. Grian shook his head.

“Scar, it’s super hard to get your hands on one. I don’t know how my mom did it, honestly.” Grian looked at his mansion. “Plus, it shouldn’t be _too_ hard to rebuild.” Scar looked at Grian. Grian seemed to be oblivious to Scar’s concern.

“Your mom.” Scar started. Grian turned to him. “Was she human?” He asked. Grian nodded. “Your dad was a worker?” Grian nodded again. “What happened?” He met eyes with his friend. Grain let out a large breath and crossed his arms. He nodded his head. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, really.” Scar added quickly. Grian laughed a bit.

“Your good, don’t worry. I’m just still… confused.” Grian looked into the sky. “It’s been ages since it all happened and I still don’t understand anything. I guess if you want to hear the story, I’ll start when I was five…” Scar nodded and took a seat on a rock. So did Grian.

“I had just turned five, it’s probably my earliest memory. It when I first did that strange black out thing, and I’ll never forget that pain. My mom gave me a stone and told me to keep it with me at all times. So I did. But it was only, what, months before The Observer Authority found me. They killed my mom, they didn’t even hide it.” Grian felt his eyes start to tear up. He was quick to blink it away. “I don’t know what they did to my dad, but it couldn’t have been much better. Well, anyhow, they took me and put me on trial only to chuck me in some random world where I had to survive. They thought I wouldn’t be able to with my shortcomings, but I had the stone. I learned fast, making through my first night by hiding in a cave and soon making my own home. It’s when I got more comfortable that I started building bigger and bigger.” Grian chuckled. “It was like a coping mechanism.” His smile grew and Scar scooted back. “That’s when I met the Watchers...” His eyes flashed with dark teal and his pupils turned to crosses.

“Scar! Grian!” Someone flew in and crashed in between them, snapping Grian out of his trance. It was Ren.

“Ren?” Scar exclaimed standing up. He helped Ren up.

“Dudes, I’ve been hearing the craziest things from some…” Ren looked up at Grain’s mansion. He stopped. Scar and Grian looked at each other.

“FROM WHO?” They yelled. Ren stepped back.

“Whoa, um, I overheard Cub, False, Keralis, and Joe I think talking about it. Hmm, now that I think about it, Wels might have been there too…” He rubbed his chin. Scar grabbed Grian and flew away. “Wait dudes!!” Ren called after them.

On the way to Iskall’s tree, Scar told X and Doc to meet them there. The two landed, and looked for Iskall. They saw him talking and laughing with Mumbo in the storage system. They ran up to them.

“Sorry to interrupt your date, but we’ve got a development.” Grian said. Iskall and Mumbo looked at him.

“You couldn’t have said anything so we could get cleaned up?” Iskall scoffed. Scar examined them as Iskall stood and cough into his sleeve where there was already blood. Scar pulled his arm down.

“What is this?” He panicked. Iskall pulled his arm away.

“I’ve been… sick. It’s fine really.” He countered, sounding kind of defensive. Scar gave him a worried look, but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t the expert on this. Mumbo sat still, looking pale as ever and tired too. “What’s going on?”

Xisuma and Doc landed, heading right over to the small group. Grian nodded.

“People are finding out.” He started to explain. “Ren came to us and said he heard other hermits talking about what’s going on. Apparently we’ve been super bad at acting natural.” Doc put one of his hands up.

“That had to be part of my fault.” He said. “False as Wels caught on pretty fast to something being wrong, sorry.” X sighed.

“You guys are fine, it’s okay. We probably could’ve said something sooner; I was just so…” He stopped and let his head sink. “I’ve been so worried about causing panic, I didn’t really remember that we’re all friends. No one’s going to be mad unless there are more observer stowaways. I’m sorry for getting so… tied.” X stuttered, tensing his body up. He shook his head, returning to the straight back they all recognized. “I’ll tell them; you guys need to focus on Mumbo.” He gestured to the hermit.

A haze covered Mumbo’s still face, light reflecting clearly in his searching eyes. He had his arms wrapped around his legs, leaning against a wall. His eyes were red. The stained wraps covering his torso, arms, and legs told everyone what they needed to know. A sudden discomfort clawed up Grian’s back as his eyes sifted through the image. He turned away.

“Mumbo, are you okay?” Doc asked, kneeling beside him. Mumbo only nodded. Iskall tried to meet his friend’s eyes, but Mumbo didn’t bother to look. A tear started trailing down Mumbo’s face.

“I was too late…” He said, voice hardly a whisper. But there was something else, a voice hiding under his voice. “Just leave me…” The plea was broken up by emotion. Mumbo didn’t hide his face, he hardly moved at all. Iskall sighed.

“Okay, X, you can tell the other hermits that we have this under control, which would be great. I don’t think we need to bring up observers or Abomination, just tell them Mumbo isn’t feeling well. Grian and I have an idea on how to fix this. Scar, Doc, try to talk to Bdubs.”

“No way. I’m done with him!” Doc argued, but his anger subsided when Scar grabbed his arm. Iskall looked at Grian and nodded.

“Let’s just try to have things under control.” Iskall said, looking up and out of his tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup.  
> I've realized today that I've been forgetting the little lines to separate parts, oh goodie.  
> Whatever, hope you enjoyed the chapter, the next one really kicks things off in a new direction.  
> and you will hate Bdubs even more.  
> He's not the Bdubs we know and love, that's for sure!!  
> Have a great day everyone!


	20. The Plan

Grian and Iskall sat in front of Mumbo as soon as they were alone. Mumbo was so still, he didn’t seem to be breathing.

“Look, creep, Get out of Mumbo!” Grian started, eyes turning teal for a quick moment. Iskall put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Abomination, we just want to talk… _outside_ of Mumbo. We don’t appreciate you using our friend as a spirit-box.” Iskall asked calmly. Mumbo curled into himself more and didn’t meet Iskall or Grian’s eyes.

“Why do you want him?” Grian asked, taking on Iskall’s more calm approach. Still the creature didn’t respond. The builder sighed. Iskall coughed into his sleeve. Grian looked over at him.

“I thought you…” He trailed off, eyebrow furrowing. Iskall leaned back and took a deep breath.

“Bdubs screwed me over.” He replied with little emotion. Grian narrowed his eyes.

“Why? What reason does he have? I think we should go sell him out! That’s-”

“I’m not going to ruin it for him. At least one of us can live.” Iskall’s eyes glossed over with tears and his face scrunched up. Grian sat back and let the silence soak in. He pushed his hair from his face.

“There’s nothing we can do?”

“Not unless we get that stone.”

Mumbo looked up at his friends. The three of them knew each other for years now. Was that going to end?

 _“Good luck getting into the observer’s domain. And if you do, good luck getting out alive. At least one of you will die.”_ Abomination warned. Mumbo shock his head.

“We’ll get the stone.” Mumbo said, meeting Iskall’s eyes. Grian looked at him. “I’ve already started the portal, there is a way to finish it!”

“What about Abomination? He won’t let you do anything.” Grian wondered. Mumbo slowly stood up. Iskall and Grian followed suit.

“I’ll need to borrow the stone.” He said. “Abomination is just like you, having the stone on me should dull the effects.”

“Mumbo, great plan and everything, but how long will it take? Grian and I are getting worse and worse. I’m stage three already.” Iskall’s voice cracked at the end. Mumbo grabbed his friend’s shoulders.

“I’m going to get this done as soon as possible. I will not stop at anything to save you guys. I’m not so far from finishing it.”

“You’re too sick.” Grian pointed out. “If you were just mining for a whole week straight, it’s not safe to do that again. You’ll work yourself to death.” Mumbo met Grian’s worried eyes.

“Don’t worry about me.” He pulled his friends into a hug. Iskall grabbed onto Grian and Mumbo tightly. Grian wrapped his arms as far as he could. “You two are both in bad situations and I don’t want you guys to live like that anymore.”

“We all might die if we do this. It could be for nothing.” Iskall said, voice filled to the brim with emotion.

“I know, but we have to try.” Mumbo reassured. “Let’s get to my base. I need a new suit and to finish that portal.”

* * *

A pit began to develop in EX’s stomach as he walked through the nether portal and into the shopping district. If it was nervousness or a strange feeling of something going terribly wrong, he did not know. The bright blue sky was starting to peep through the dark overcast. Small droplets of water gleaned on the trees and their unique diamond decoration. The main street looked glorious in the moody lighting of a half-lit sky. EX eye’s opened wide as he took in the surroundings.

He took his helmet off to take in the cool morning air. He ran his fingers through his long dyed white hair. He moved his hand over his face and smiled at the surroundings. He slipped his helmet back over his head and turned to wander the shopping district to see Etho and Impulse staring at him with wide eyes. EX stared back.

“What, never seen a guy take off his helmet before? Oh right, American’s, everything’s offensive to you.” He said turning his head away and crossing his arms. Etho almost said something but decided to stay quiet. EX glared at them. “Take a picture, it'll last longer!” He yelled before walking away.

He made his way down the streets, looking at the shops. What was he going to do to prove Xisuma wrong? Maybe make a shop everyone on the server needs, perhaps he could just help some people. EX thought about it for a second before shooting into the air.

It was the perfect plan; grind a lot of resources, drop them off at hermit’s bases, impress X, become an official member of the ‘Xisuma Thinks I’m A Good Person Club’, bathe in love. Ex landed in the desert and pulled out an iron shovel and started digging. And it was hardly half his shovel's durability when EX sat down. This was hard. He smiled. Why was he doing this the hard way? He’s EX!

The nether soldier stood up and pointed his arm forward. A laser shot out of the gauntlet and destroyed blocks in front of it. He smiled. How come he wasted so much time with a useless shovel when he had all these machines that do it for him? He spun the laser around, digging the sand at light speeds. He summoned a couple shulker boxes into his hand and tossed them to the floor, ready to collect the resources.

He pressed a button to his helmet and let the loud rock blast in his ears. The red light scattered the sand, blowing it into a storm. EX bopped his head as he spun, collecting the sand. He tossed it into the shulker boxes to the rhythm of the song.

EX dug out the dessert for a couple of days and nights, enjoying his nights alone under the stars. He worked for two days and finally had ten full shulker boxes full of sand. But who would he give this all to? There were many uses for sand, but it alone could be considered useless. Unless EX wanted to spend another two days digging gravel or farming gunpowder, he’d need to give it to someone who wouldn’t need to grind other resources…

Scar. Of course. A man with incredible skills in terraforming would most likely love a supply of sand! Through EX’s incredible skills of picking things up, he was able to deduce that Scar was the mayor of the shopping district. He walked up the town halls steps and placed down the shulker boxes. He placed a sign on top.

“From EX, For Scar” EX read it through. He smiled. Was this it? Was he finally going to prove to the hermits he wasn’t insane? That he was… a good person?

“And what are you doing in here?” Cub asked, turning EX around. EX froze only for a second.

“Well, _friend_ , I was just dropping off some resources for our good mayor!” He explained, stepping aside to show the boxes. Cub narrowed his eyes and inspected the boxes. He looked underneath them to see if observers would detect them, but there weren't any. He looked back at EX.

“Sure.” Cub walked into his office and slammed the door. EX jumped back. He laughed to himself.

“Maybe he was already just… having a bad day?” He said to no one. He walked out, shoving his hands in his pockets. That’s when the sky turned pit black and the world went dark. EX frantically looked around, his heart starting to beat rapidly. He tried to turn on his flashlight, but it didn’t work. Nothing on his suit worked. The darkness seemed to suck the life out of him before it was shoved back once the world came back to light.

EX checked his scanner. Mumbo’s base. What in the world was Grian doing there? He jumped off into the air and raced for Xisuma’s base. He needed to tell him.

Cub lifted a walkie-talkie to his face.

“Mumbo’s base,” He said in a low voice. “I’ll meet you guys there.”

Bdubs wasn’t listening to Doc preach to him about what was immoral and moral. He was listening to the sound of the radio in his back pocket with air pods.

“I need to use the restroom.” He excused himself and flew straight for Mumbo’s base without Doc realizing.

False sharpened her sword as she flew, Joe and Wels jumped into the nether portal, Keralis jumped from his plane, and Ren turned to the corner of jungle trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what's cool?  
> I've got an Instagram.  
> I draw stuff and have recently been posting some mcyt stuff  
> It would be cool if you followed me, :)
> 
> With that out of the way...  
> Have a wonderful day!


	21. Betrayal

“Grian, are you okay?” Iskall said, lifting Grain from the cold stone.

“Great…” He responded weakly. Iskall dropped him when he saw blood on his arms. “OW! F- not going to say that…” Grain sat up. Iskall looked at his back. He held back puke.

Grian’s back was bruised entirely, dark teal and purple. It was ripped open, and a wall of muscle and tendons stretched across. Churning and beating could be witnessed from the other side. Grian’s crocked spine was held together by the spinal cord and other strands of muscle. It looked like it had been implanted in the gory wall behind.

“Dude, that doesn’t look okay!” He panicked. Grain tried to stand up, but he couldn’t. Iskall coughed into his arm violently. “Grian, how are you still alive?” The builder stopped trying to get up and took a few deep breaths.

“I don’t know. I feel like I should be.” He strained to talk. “It hurts so bad… and it’s your fault…” Grian turned his head to face to side-eye Iskall. His eyes were teal, and the pupils had become crosses. Iskall jumped back

“Watch it, abomination, I’ll rip your back apart, it’s doesn’t seem hard!” He seethed back. Mumbo tossed a broken pickaxe at them.

“Guys,” Mumbo said in a raspy voice. “Please try to keep your heads on, I’m almost done.”

“Why does it have to be so cold down here?” Grian breathed, his eyes returning to normal.

“Abomination.” Mumbo answered simply.

“Why can’t we help you again?” Grian spat, trying to lift himself once more. Mumbo sighed and placed more redstone under the portal base.

“Abomination told me it needed to be one person’s work. It’s unstable otherwise.” His voice could hardly be heard from the other side of the room. Iskall sighed and helped up Grian. Grian sighed as well. “Look, it’s almost there, all we need to do is finish connecting these two lines.” The redstoner added. Iskall sat against the wall and held his knees to his face.

“Mumbo, are you sure this is a good idea?” He asked. “Maybe we should just tell everyone what’s going on.” Grian and Mumbo turned to him. “Think about it: we could just tell everyone and live the last of our lives with our friends. Or at least we could tell them where we are going.” Mumbo and Grian looked at each other.

“We should let Xisuma know.” Grian added. “Tell him if we don’t come back, assume the worst and tell everyone.” Mumbo looked at them.

“But what if they come after us.” He countered. “We can’t let them.”

“We have to trust that X won’t tell anyone and won’t come after us.” Iskall stood up and walked over to Mumbo. He grabbed his friend’s shoulders. “We can’t go into this without telling anyone. We might die, we have to tell him.”

“But-” Mumbo tried to speak but Iskall grabbed his shoulder’s tighter.

“I’m going to tell X. It’ll be okay.” Iskall took out his communicator and typed in it.

_You whisper to Xisuma: “Grian, Mumbo, and I are going somewhere. If we don’t come back, tell everyone we’re dead. We’re sorry. Wait a week. We should be back by then.”_

Grian froze.

“What is it?” Iskall asked. Grain held up a finger. Iskall stood still and listened. Muffled footsteps walked above them.

“Now would be a good time to finish that circuit Mumbo!” Iskall whisper-yelled. Mumbo placed down two pieces of redstone and lit the portal with a fire charge. The portal was a dark teal and dust swirled around it.

“Dump all of your stuff!” Mumbo wheezed. Grian and Iskall threw their stuff on the ground and followed Mumbo to the portal.

“We might freaking die today!” Grian said, adrenaline pumping.

“Well, we can’t go back now!” Iskall yelled. Bdubs jumped down the hole. They looked at him, locking eyes. Bdubs’ eye widened. Iskall backed up. They stood perfectly still. Bdubs started to laugh.

“You couldn’t have made this easier for me!!” He yelled loudly. He pulled out his sword and ran at them. They ran for the portal, quickly jumping in. Bdubs swung his sword, hitting the portal and shattering it.

“Down here!” Xisuma said, jumping into the room. He stopped. Bdubs slowly turned around. EX, Scar, Etho, and Doc jumped down.

“What did you do?” Doc yelled, running to Bdubs.

“I got rid of them.” He said, taking in a deep breath.

“You what?” Etho said. X shivered, lifting his communicator to read the message Iskall sent. Scar walked forward as well.

“It’s right here!” A voice called from above. False jumped down, followed by Wels, Cub, Keralis, Ren, and Joe. She lifted her sword immediately. Bdubs ran up to them.

“EX just shoved them threw that portal and broke it!” He said. They looked at EX.

“What? You’re kidding me! We just saw him break the portal!” He spat. The hermits narrowed their eyes.

“Yeah, sure, as if we’d believe you!” Ren said. X and Scar looked at each other.

“He’s telling the truth.” Scar said. “We came in on Bdubs in here.” X nodded.

“Yeah, okay, sure, we’ll believe you.” Joe mocked. “You all are looking mighty suspicious!” Etho stepped forward.

“You can believe me, that portal was gone when we stepped in!” He countered. Wels shook his head.

“Well, did you see Bdubs break it or not? Your alibi is getting worse the more you talk.” The knight said, pulling out his sword. Doc walked in front of Etho and EX. He laughed.

“Get yourselves straight, why would I ever blame him if it wasn’t the truth?” He opened his arms. “Exactly, I wouldn’t!” Keralis shook his head.

“Except you would! You constantly bash him!”

“In a joking way!” Xisuma stepped in. “If this wasn’t serious, then we wouldn’t be yelling at each other! We saw Bdubs, I wish I hadn’t, but I did.” He forced his voice to be steady. False rubbed her face.

“I don’t mean to be like this, but you’re defending EX.” She lowered her sword. “Evil is in his name.”

“That’s not my real name.” He mumbled.

“And he’s not trustworthy. I’m sorry, but I’m with Bdubs.” She finished. Wels nodded and so did Joe.

“Guys, it’s X.” Said Ren. “Would he really lie about something like that?”

“No, but it’s EX.” Keralis explained. “He could be forcing them to say what he wants them to.” Doc clenched his fists and cursed under his breath.

“But he’s so obviously lying!” Doc said. “He’s an observer, too! There is basically nothing separating him from Grian or Iskall!” Bdubs looked at him, dead in the eyes.

“No. No I’m not.” He stepped forward. “Are you crazy? I don’t even know what an ‘observer’ is. You mean like the redstone thing?” Scar looked at Etho, taking in a sharp breath.

“But you…” X started to say. The other hermits looked at Doc, eyebrows creased. Doc backed up.

“Are you okay?” Wels asked. “What are… ‘observers’ in this context?” X almost said something, but closed his mouth. He rubbed his arm.

“Didn’t you talk to us a couple weeks ago, at the concrete shop?” Scar asked. Bdubs shook his head, looking back at the other hermits. Etho clenched his mouth, furrowing his brows.

“We get it, he’s your bother, you want to believe that he’s turning over a new leaf.” Cub said, walking over and putting a hand on X’s shoulder. “But you have to look at the facts: what has he really done to prove he can be trusted?” X backed up. Etho grabbed his arm.

“let’s get out of here.” He said. Etho, X, EX, Scar, and Doc slowly walked passed the other hermits and out of the whole.

“What are we going to do about Grian, Iskall, and Mumbo?” False asked Bdubs. He looked at the portal.

“No clue.”

* * *

Xisuma paid no attention all the way back to his base. His mind kept coming back to his what Iskall messaged him. He knew where they went and knew they couldn’t come back. Bdubs closed the portal. Soon, he landed in the main base and leaned in the landing pad. He thought about what Bdubs said. He closed his eyes. Did they really want him to wait one week before telling everyone?

“Xisuma void!” Etho yelled. X snapped into reality and saw that Etho had grabbed his shoulders. “Are you okay?” X shook his head.

“Yeah…” He mumbled. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Doc walked over as well

“Dude, you don’t look okay.” He said. X felt sick. He wasn’t ok. He wasn’t fine. Xisuma knew his friends might never come back and probably won’t. Bdubs destroyed the portal. How were they going to get back now? Xisuma covered his face.

“I don't know what's going on...” He mumbled. Etho looked at him. X pushed away and walked to the other side of the tower. He looked out to the stars. “I have never _not_ known what's going on!” he put his hands on his hips and laughed a little bit. He bit his lip, fighting the urge to tell everyone what Iskall messaged him.

“Hey, It's okay. None of us can even pretend to know!” Scar said walking over. “You stay so calm and level headed, I'm surprised it took this long to finally find something where we're all clueless!” Xisuma took a deep breath.

“We just need to ignore Bdubs for right now.” Doc added. “He's spreading dangerous lies. We need to talk to the other hermits before he gets to them. When you guys said a turf war had started, this was not what I had in mind.” EX nodded.

“Let's try to stay focused. We can find Mumbo, Grian, and Iskall soon. Right now, let’s get the other hermits on our side.”

The group nodded to each other and flew out of the tower. The first day of Mumbo, Grian, and Iskall being gone had just begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are you guys doing?  
> Seriously, I want to make sure everyone is doing okay! It's always good to do a little check!  
> :)  
> I swear, this doesn't end badly.


	22. The Observer's Realm

Mumbo, Grian, and Iskall landed on top of each other on the other side of the portal. Iskall groaned and rolled off the stack. Mumbo stood up and Grian tensed up his body.

“Y-you guys landed on... me?” He croaked. Mumbo quickly knelt down and looked at Grian’s back. He held back puke and set the shirt back down shivering.

“I can’t feel my legs… that can’t be good.” He said. Iskall coughed into his sleeve.

“It has dust in it now…” Iskall swallowed. “I’m gonna be stage four soon.” Mumbo looked at him.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, stage four of what?”

“Observer poisoning.” Iskall explained. “It’s as common as it is deadly. It’s not normally a problem for observers, cause, you know, medicine, but I left the empire. No healthcare for me.” He said, coughing again. Mumbo looked up. His eyes widened

Before them stood a void filled with floating islands. The void was filled with stars and swirls of teal and purple. Mumbo’s jaw dropped. His eyes glistened with wonder. Grian sighed and looked back at the portal.

“We should probably hurry; we have no idea if the portal might-” He was cut off by the small tear in space zipping into oblivion. “Close…”

“Bdubs must’ve closed it from the other side!” Mumbo waved his hands around the air trying to find it.

“We can’t get out.” Iskall said.

“We could try building another one?” Grian offered. Mumbo shook his head.

“Abomination only told me how to make one there! The recipe is completely different here!” His voice couldn't be called a yell, but the terror in it gave off the effect well enough. He started to pace.

“The observer Authority is going to find us! We are going to be sentenced to death! They’ll kill us before we do!” Iskall panicked.

“What if they recognize me? What will they do to me once they find out I survived?” Grian added. “Guys, I just want to say, I had a really weird dream once where I kissed Mumbo. That was the worst night of my life until now!”

“Worst?” Mumbo asked.

“I had a dream where I was talking to some fox guy in some server called The Dream SMP. _That_ was the worst night of my life until now!” Iskall countered.

“You guys have some really strange dreams…” Mumbo said. “The worst night of my life until now was when I had a dream where I built a vault and then blew it up. I hoped that would never happen, but now it really won’t! I wish I got to build one last vault before I died…” Iskall pulled his friends into a hug.

“We got some insane humans over here.” They froze. They slowly turned to see two tall observers. One was holding a radio. “Talking about furries and kissing each other.” An intangible voice said something and the observer responded, “Yes mam. You’re coming with us, kids.”

The observers dragged the three hermits into a… car? They were shoved in the back. And the two observers sat up front.

“You kids like certain music?” The one driving asked. No one said anything. “Okay, Trader Smith it is…” He turned on the radio. The 2010s started singing through the speakers.

“Dude, really? Jaiden Buster is much better.” The other observer said, changing the radio. The driver sighed, shaking his head. The car sailed over the void and headed to the largest island. The island was crowned with a castle and surrounding town. They parked in a lot outside of the castle. They got out and pulled the hermits out.

“The Arch Mage wants an audience with you three. Said you opened a portal from a server named, ‘Hermitcraft’.” The driver looked at his notes as he spoke. The other observer scoffed.

“They’re all ‘this-craft’ and ‘that-craft’, get a unique name!” He said, putting his arms up. The driver shook his head.

“Don’t listen to him, we’ll get you kids home as soon as possible.”

“Stop calling them kids, they’re obviously not.”

“I doubt they are a thousand years old. Plus, don’t talk to me like that, you’re what? Four hundred? You’ve hardly been an authority for two years.” The hermits tensed up. They walked into the castle to see a tall observer with a crown. He was talking to a smaller observer holding a clipboard.

“Sir,” The older observer coughed. The Arch spun around and looked.

“Ah, the insane humans!” He trotted over. “Good to meet you!” He said shaking their hands. “So, do they have names?” He asked. The observer shrugged.

“We know they can speak, but they haven’t said a peep since we found them.” The older one gestured to them. The Arch nodded.

“Leave us!” He commanded and the observers did just that. The three hermits stood in silence. The Arch smiled at them. They weren't really in the best condition to talk to a king.

Mumbo's suit looked like it was made for someone completely different, apart from his height. Both of Iskall's sleeves were covered in blood, old and new. Grian's sweater was dirty and had a large stain on the back.

“Now don’t be shy, what are your names?” They didn’t say anything. The Arch narrowed his eyes and sat on his throne. He made three seats scoop them up and put them in front of him. “Fine, I’ll guess!” He looked at Grian. “Hmmm, you’re looking like a… tsk, tsk... John!” Grian tried to sink into himself.

“It’s Grian…” He mumbled. Iskall looked at him. Grian returned the annoyed look.

“What a unique name! I love it! You know, that’s a funny story!” He started, making a glass of wine appear in his hand. “Would you gentlemen want a drink?” They shook their heads. “Well, anyhow, when I was a young king, I had to go into another timeline where I observed a Grian. Must have been you in that timeline! You see, he had come in contact with some dastardly beings called Watchers. You probably did too, seeing as that timeline was only a couple of atom variations away from this one!” The king turned to Iskall and Mumbo. “Has this young man told you that story?” They shook their heads.

“They don’t need to hear it!” Grian said, suddenly standing. The king smiled.

“Oh, I like that! You’re talking!” He sat up, tossing his wine to the side. “Come on, just let’s hear who you too are!” He gestured to Mumbo.

“I’m Mumbo…” He wheezed. The king covered his mouth.

“A little horse there, buddy! How about you?” He points to Iskall.

“Iskall.” He answered, coughing. The king's eyes widened then narrowed.

“Grian, turn around, do a little spin.” The Arch asked with suspicion. Grian slowly turned around. “I had a feeling you three weren’t humans… I’ll call the Medic.”

It took no more than ten minutes of piercing silence for the Medic to arrive. With him, another, tall observer came.

“You brought the Matchmaker!” The king asked. The Medic grabbed The Matchmakers hand.

“Yes. You know she has a soft spot for abominations.” He answered with aggravation. Grian, Mumbo, and Iskall sat still and as quiet as they could. Iskall coughed again. “Stage four!” The Medic yelled, sliding over to Iskall. He grabbed the hermit’s face and turned it around. “Almost stage four…” He mumbled. Iskall tried not to cry. Mumbo grabbed his hand. The Medic stood and shook his head, pulling a box out of his bag. He opened it, reveling a round stone. Grian held his breath. His eyes widened. His pupils became crosses and turned teal.

Grian didn’t hold back and he jumped forward, grabbing the stone and opening his dust wings. He shot into the air and smashed through a glass mosaic above the throne. Iskall and Mumbo stood and watched blindly. The Matchmaker, Medic, and Arch watched in horror.

“An abomination at large?” The Medic yelled. The Arch pulled his walkie-talkie up. The Matchmaker grabbed his arm.

“Arch, you must let me get it! The Authority will kill it!” She said. “You two have to help these observers, they are lost and hurt! I’ll get it.” The king hesitated, but nodded.

“Don’t let them kill it. It serves us better alive.” He added. The Matchmaker nodded and flew into the sky with dusty wings like Grian’s, but they didn't shed at all. The Medic put his hands on his hips and looked at Mumbo and Iskall."

"Hey, you two need to come with me. We’ll get you a room.” The Medic waved them down the hall. They slowly walked. Iskall let tears fall down his face.

“I’m gonna die…” He mumbled. Mumbo wrapped his arm around Iskall tight. The Medic led them to a room and opened the door.

“You two can stay in here. I’ll get a new stone, don’t strain yourself, whatever you do. The slightest acceleration in heart rate could kill you.” He walked out, closing the door. Mumbo held Iskall tighter.

“You’re not going to die, I swear! Here!” Mumbo lifted the half the stone from his neck and put it around Iskall.

“Mumbo, what about Abomination?” He asked, wiping off his face.

 _That’s not going to do anything to help him.”_ Abomination’s voice returned almost immediately. _“You’re so pathetic you couldn’t even keep Grian in check.”_ Mumbo tried to ignore it.

“It’s okay, I won’t listen. You need it more than I do…” He hugged Iskall tightly. The feeling of loneliness came rushing back as well. He couldn’t help but let tears fall from his eyes as well.

 _“I find reason to believe no one will look for you.”_ Abomination mocked. _“You have no reason to believe they’ll come for you. YOU COULD BE DEAD AND THEY’D NEVER KNOW!”_ Mumbo clenched his teeth. He looked at the clock that hung on the wall and held his breath. They had a week to get back without worrying the whole server. It was six in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was stupid and forgot to actually name my Insta  
> It's @skeecatt22  
> Anyhow, I found something called Witherpulse and now I'm hooked. You guys should go check it out!  
> I don't know why I feel like I'm bothering people by writing notes, like you don't need to read any of this lol.  
> And I also want to thank everyone for 100 kudos! I can't even believe that that many people like my work! Just thank you so much!  
> Well, hope you guys have a great day!!


	23. The First Day

Once Xisuma landed in the shopping district, it was painfully obvious that Bdubs had gotten to the other hermits first. It was only six, but most hermits were gathered around Bdubs. Scar landed besides him and sighed. He was in his normal attire, hat and all.

“What...” X looked at him. Scar looked forward, slightly nodding his head.

“Just got told I’m no longer mayor.” He said. “How’s you?” X shook his head and walked up to the gathering. Bdubs stood on top of the stairs, arms opened wide, an expression of fake empathy. Scar crossed his arms. Doc, Etho, and EX joined them.

“So they're gone?” Stress asked, taking a step back. Bdubs acted as if he was sorrowful.

“I'm afraid so.” He explained. “I don’t know why they made that portal, but I do know that Xisuma, Etho, Scar, and Doc were trying to cover for EX. I don’t know their reasoning; I like to believe there was a good one, but I saw what I saw. Believe what you want. I’d like to make another point though: I believe those three hermits did possess a threat to the server.”

“What?” Stress yelped.

“You have to listen to me! I’m sure I’m not the only one that has noticed how strange Grian has been acting. Him blowing up his mansion was no accident and it was a part of a greater plot. I have reason to believe everyone in that jungle had something to do with it. I have not much evidence for them, but for The Architects: it’s all there. My hope is that they will return and we can talk to them about this apparent plot.” Tango and Impulse stood uncomfortably towards the back of the crowd.

“Nuts, right?” Tango said. Impulse nodded absentmindedly. Bdubs was an observer, right? So why was he saying otherwise? Had Impulse imagined that? The redstoner shook his head.

“I still don't understand. How are they 'dangerous'?” He asked. Tango shrugged.

“I don't want to ask any questions right now; you know?” He looked at Impulse. “I feel weird talking about it. You feel it too right?”

“The tension in the air? Yeah...” They watched as Bdubs continued his speech. He jumped back up to the stairs where False, Cub, and Wels stood as well. He balanced on the railing as he spoke words of condolences and what he thinks of the situation. The hermits all felt the tension. The discomfort. Xisuma shook his head and walked away. Etho, EX, Doc, and Scar followed him. Bdubs turned his back to the crowd, smirking.

Xisuma flew and landed on top of the HEP building. He took off his helmet, unaware that he had been followed. He leaned his head on his hand and looked out to the ocean. He hummed a song and tapped his other hand on his leg. The ocean wind blew in X's face, chilling his spine. He took a deep breath and pushed his hand over his face. X had always kept his hair shaved. It was more comfortable under the helmet. He put his mask back on and stood. X turned around. He raised an eyebrow.

EX, Scar, Doc, and Etho stood completely still.

“Thought you did something?” Xisuma asked, smirking. Etho snapped his finger.

“Yeah, I guess so...” He laughed. X sighed.

“We should find out how to fix the portal.” Doc suggested. X jumped forward.

“We can't!” He yelled. The other hermits looked at him, shocked. He backed up.

“What?” Scar asked, walking forward, putting his arm up. Xisuma looked around.

“We can't...” He held his breath. “Iskall told me to wait a week.” He said finally. “Right before we found the portal, Iskall told me to wait a week before telling everyone what happened. It they don't come back... we assume they died...” Scar put his hand down. X sighed. “He told me not to tell anyone. I'm sorry.” Doc walked forward, pushing Scar aside.

“No way.” He said, flatly. “We can't just let them die! We have to go after them!”

“We have to honor what they said!” X objected. “They know more about this than any of us. If they are in danger of dying, so are we, ten-fold!”

“You're insane if you think I'm not going in after them! I will not let them die!” Doc raised his voice. X tensed up.

“You're insane if you do!” X yelled. Doc stood over him.

“Do you want them to die?” He yelled. Xisuma shoved him back.

“NO! Of course not! I just don't want any of you guys to die!” X snapped. His eyes started to water.

“So you're going to let them die?”

“I don't want to! We have to make tough decisions sometimes!” X heard his voice crack. Doc didn't let up.

“You think Bdubs is right? Is this what this is?” He yelled, his own voice breaking.

“Look!” Xisuma raised his arm and showed them the message. Doc grabbed his arm and read it out loud.

“'Grian, Mumbo, and I are going somewhere. If we don’t come back, tell everyone we’re dead. We’re sorry. Wait a week. We should be back by then.'” Doc pushed X away. “That doesn't mean we shouldn't go find them. Why should we just _wait_? Why in the world would we wait for our friends to _die_?” X closed his eyes.

“What else will we do?” He said, clearly crying. Doc dropped his stance.

“X- I...” He took a deep breath. X covered his face, trying not to cry but crying more in the process. Doc grabbed X and hugged him. “I'm sorry.”

The day seemed to go extremely slow and painfully fast simultaneously. X dropped onto his bed. Day one of seven was done. Finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup guys.  
> What do you think will happen to our daring heroes?  
> Have a great day!


	24. MATCHING OUTFITS LOL (Working title)

Iskall and Mumbo sat on one of the beds in the suite. Mumbo checked the clock. It was nine thirty in the morning. The three hours spent alone in the room were quiet and long. Mumbo leaned back on the soft bed. Iskall was asleep and had pulled the covers over himself. Mumbo sat at the end, unable to let his mind rest. Abomination's voice never went away.

“ _Fool...”_ Abomination mocked. Mumbo stood up.

“You're running out of insults!” He accused. 

_“Am not!”_ Abomination scoffed.

Mumbo laughed victoriously. Iskall readjusted.

“Sorry!” The tall man whispered. Abomination floated out of Mumbo and sat in one of the luscious seats.

“Do tell me what your plan is?” It asked. “Last time I checked, your exit is closed, Grian ran off with Iskall's only hope of survival, and just look at yourself- you are the definition of 'sick freak'!”

“'Sick freak'? That's the best you've got, cyclops?” Mumbo said, crossing his arms. Abomination did not look impressed.

“You didn't answer my question.” The creature stated. “You have no plan, and thus will die.”

“We have a plan! But why would I ever tell you?” Mumbo said, sitting back on the bed. Abomination shook its head.

“What are you going to do with Grian?” It floated beside Mumbo. “You can't just forgive him for leaving Iskall to die. Speaking off, that's twice now, isn't it? First Bdubs, then Grian. Ouch. Maybe I should try insulting him. Lot to work off there.” Mumbo shoved it.

“Excuse you? You will not touch him!” Mumbo laid over Iskall. Abomination laughed with a hint of emotion. Iskall moved a little bit. Abomination went back inside of Mumbo as Iskall sat up. He looked at Mumbo.

“What are you doing?” He yawned. Mumbo sat up quickly. Iskall smiled. He coughed into his shirt. They turned to the door when they heard a knock.

“Excuse me sirs?” An observer walked in. “I have some clean clothes for you. And a handkerchief...” He set two small stacks on the end of the bed as well as handed Iskall a dark teal cloth with gold, gear embroidered designs. “Would you like anything to eat?” Iskall and Mumbo looked at each other and nodded quickly. The observer nodded and walked out. Mumbo jumped off the bed and looked at the clothes.

He lifted a white button up and teal tie. The tie had a gear design at the bottom in gold. The pants were a dark, cool brown. The shoes were the same color as the pants but with a gloss varnish. The suit jacket was brown as well.

Iskall's outfit was a dark brown button up with a teal vest. The pants were dark teal with the shoes the same as Mumbo's. Iskall laughed.

“Did they give us matching outfits?”

“looks like it!” Mumbo laughed. The observer walked back in with a tray of food. He set it on a small fold out table he had under his arm.

“Those clothes are Traditional Mechanic. If you have other preferences, we have a mechanic tailor visiting.” He said.

“These are good, thank you.” Iskall said. The observer smiled and walked out. Mumbo slid down to the food.

“I'm starving...” He said, shoving bread into his mouth. Iskall laughed, then coughed into his handkerchief.

“I'm getting changed.” Iskall said, grabbing his new clothes and walking into the small bathroom attached to the suite. Surprisingly, the outfit fit perfectly. He walked out. Mumbo's jaw dropped.

“That is ten times better then annoying-sales-skall...” He said, stuffing his face with another bread roll. Iskall laughed.

“Please tell me you're going to get out of that awful thing now!” He said, covering his face. Mumbo stood up and grabbed his new suit.

“Sure why not.” He walked towards the bathroom. “Don't eat it all!”

“I mean, you already have so...”

* * *

Grian landed. How long had he been flying? He collapsed on the ground, taking in shallow breaths. He heard someone land near him. He tried to pull himself us, but he couldn't.

“Abomination, it's okay...” A soft voice said. A tall observer wearing a Victorian, steampunk skirt knelt down. Grian sucked in more air. She lifted the builder into her arms. “Flying for three hours wasn't the best idea, now was it?” Three hours?

She gracefully flew up into the air and started flying back to the castle. Somehow the observer was able to make the three-hour journey again. Grian couldn't help but pass out on the way.

When he woke up, Grain was on a bed. His arm was chained to the bed frame. He sat up and jerked at it, trying to pull it away. He took a deep breath and saw medicine on the bed side table. His sweater and undershirt were laid out on a chair across the room. He stretched his back, but it didn't hurt. He gulped and looked at the clock. It was two in the afternoon.

Grian curled up on the bed. He remembered what he did. He stole the stone, leaving Mumbo and Iskall. He pushed his face into his legs. For a second, he looked at the medications. He stopped himself. Grian rubbed his face, trying to push back unwanted ideas. There was a knock at his door.

“Abomination?” A voice said walking in. It was Matchmaker, the one who brought Grian back. She sat down on the bed near Grian. “You're safe, no one is going to hurt you. I just want to ask you a few questions.” Grian looked away. The Matchmaker sighed. “Why did you steal the stone?”

Grian closed his eyes tightly. “It makes me normal...” He mumbled. The Matchmaker cocked her head.

“How did you survive?” She asked.

“I used the stone. It let me learn.” Grian said. He looked at her. “Iskall's okay right?” The Matchmaker put a hand on his shoulder.

“Yes, we are making the potion right now.” She responded calmly “Here.” She wrapped Grian in a cloak with a gear pendent. She unlocked the chain from the bed and pressed a button on it. The chain shrunk and she fastened it to his other wrist.

“What are you doing?” Grian cried. The Matchmaker sighed.

“We don't want to take chances.” They walked down the hall and Grian held his head low. Guards watched them pass. They walked back into the throne room. The king looked to him.

“Ah, you're awake!” He said. He looked nervous. “Oh! My brothers are going to be so proud!”

“You invited your brothers?” The Matchmaker yelled.

“Why of course I did! I captured an abomination!!!” He jumped up and down. The Matchmaker scoffed. Just as The Arch finished speaking, two new observers entered the room. One was shorter, but broader, the other was tall and thin with wide shoulders. The tall one had a cloak similar to Grian’s while the short one wore nothing.

“Chiefden!!! Mechy-lad!!” The Arch Mage greeted his brothers with a hug.

“Good to see you, kingy!” The taller one, The Mechlord, patted his back. The short one pulled away.

“I do believe you have a creature in need of termination?” The shorter one, The Worker Chief, addressed the problem. The Arch Mage looked at him.

“Actually, (I can't believe I’m saying this), We aren't going to kill it!” He said, flinging His arms into the air. The Chief growled.

“We _need_ to kill it! If it reproduces, we'll have even more _abominable_ things to deal with!” He yelled. “Imagine if it had twins…” The Mechlord stepped forward.

“I hate to agree with Chieffy, but he's right. Keeping an abomination alive is unheard of.”

“Don't call me 'Chieffy'...”

“Both of you need to hear me out!” The Arch Mage continued. “If we keep it alive, we can learn from it! What makes it so awful!” The Chief and Mechlord considered this.

“Give us more time to think on this.” The Mechlord said. “Please, this could set an unprecedented precedent that would be very controversial. I need to conduct a popular vote with my people.”

“Even if I used that ridiculous voting thing, I'd know the results. Every worker wants abominations dead.” The Chief

“Oh?” The Magic king spat. “Tell that to a mother of one, you insufferable whack-a-mole!” He pointed to The Matchmaker. The Chief narrowed his eyes. The Mechlord sighed.

“Bring him to a room and keep him chained up. Bring him food and a clean outfit. It's almost three, once dinner has come, I will ask you to dine with us and state to us (mostly to Chiefden) why you should live.” The Mechlord declared. The Matchmaker handed Grian off to two guards. They pulled Grian down the hall without much of a fight. They tossed him onto a bed in a room and locked both of his arms to the bed frame. The builder struggled, but it was worthless.

“We got guards at the balcony and out the door. Don't try anything.” The guards walked out. Grian tried to pull the chains off, but to no avail. He leaned on the back board. He took a deep breath. The clock ticked slowly onward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL. I hope everyone like these new characters and ideas!  
> I know, I know, observers, watchers, very clever Skeecat.  
> These are my mythical creatures and it was pure coincidence that they are synonyms of each other.  
> I don't care tho.  
> Have a good day my lovely readers!!


	25. Try The Portal Again

Scar crossed off day three. His hand shook as the red marker covered the number. He gulped. He looked at Jellie who was asleep on his desk in Larry the snail. He looked at the door. It wasn't gone. It made him shiver. He jumped out and slid down the ladder. He looked up at Iskall's omega tree.

Scar shot into the air with a firework, hitting a couple tree branches on his way up. He started to fly to Mumbo's base.

He landed with as much grace as normal and dropped down the hole in the floor. X and Doc were standing in front of the portal. Scar sighed.

“Guys, you've been in here for two days.” He said. They nodded blankly.

“We've been sleeping.” Doc mumbled, not looking away but gesturing to a bed. X nodded. Scar sighed.

“Well, Bdubs is putting in effect a new rule where shops not making money are to be destroyed.” Scar said. “You know, when you guys were joking about the mayor going power crazy, I thought that would be me...” They didn't seem to be listening. “What are we going to tell everyone? They already know the Mumbo, Grian, and Iskall are gone, so what happens? Do we hold the funeral?” Doc and Xisuma still didn't listen. Scar sat on the ground and looked at the pebbles.

“Doc, try the flint and steal again.” X commanded. Doc did as he was told. Scar looked at them look expectantly at the dark netherite frame as fire lit and unlit. He groaned and flopped on his back.

“What happens if they come back after this week? Like we think they're dead, but then they show up like, I don't know, a week later and just... what? What happens next?” Scar asked, looking at the ceiling. The two other hermits didn't seem to hear him. He scoffed loudly, trying to catch their attention. Scar heard someone hop down from the main room.

"Xisuma, Doc?” Stress said walking forward. They didn't turn around. She sighed.

“They said they've been sleeping.” Scar mocked, standing up. Stress crossed her arms.

“X, Doc, get over here!” She said. X and Doc didn't turn around.

“I think we need to replace this netherite block here.” X said standing and looking at Doc.

“Strange how we need the corner block, even stranger that it broke.” Doc added. Xisuma nodded.

“I think they're ignoring us.” Scar said. Doc snapped and looked back at them, pointing.

“Bingo!” He turned back around and struck the flint and steal again. Stress and Scar sighed.

“You guys know what Bdubs said, right? About Grian, Mumbo, and Iskall right?” Stress asked walking forward. “He said that if they come back and aren't being weird, then there shouldn't be anything wrong.” X and Doc froze.

“Exactly, what happens if they do?” Scar asked. “Now everyone is expecting them to come back, and everything to be good. What if everything’s not good? What if they come back, and didn't fix the problems, or just don't come back? Are you guys still going to try to fix it if they don't come back?”

“You ask to many questions.” Doc retorted, still not turning. Xisuma sighed.

“We're just going to try like a few weeks after. We won't be here for... months...” X continued to work on the redstone. “Just let us try. There are only a four days left.” Scar and Stress started walking out, convinced they wouldn't get X and Doc out. The climbed up and walked out of Mumbo's base.

“Do you believe what Bdubs said?” Stress asked. Scar shook his head.

“No way!” He said, turning to her. “He called me crazy! Me! I know, at least at a surface level, what was going on. Bdubs is lying to everyone.” He wrapped his arms around his chest. Stress put a hand on his shoulder.

“I'm sure everything will be alright.” She said. Scar looked at her.

“I've got to tell you something.” He said. “But you can't, and I mean can't, tell anyone!” Stress nodded. Scar took in a deep breath. “Right before they left, Iskall sent X a message to wait a week, a then announce them dead. There are only four days left this week and we are all on edge. We don't want to worry anyone by saying something, so...” Stress looked at him with wide eyes.

“So we assume the worst?”

“Yeah...”

* * *

Bdubs walked into Cubs office. He closed the door behind him, careful not to let anyone see.

“Cub, we need to talk.” He said. Cub looked up.

“Yes, of course.”

Bdubs started pacing. “Listen, what I said about Grian, Iskall, and Mumbo? Horse apples. Grian is the only one that was a little bit dangerous. They went into that portal to find a fix for him.” Cub's eyes grew as he soaked it in. “They aren't coming back. Most likely they will die there.”

“Wait, you're telling me they're going to die... and you closed the portal on them?” Cub stood up, raising his voice. Bdubs stopped.

“No! I closed it so that no one would go in and die with them!” He lied. “It was a spur of the moment decision that shouldn't have been made so hastily, but I panicked. That's why I needed to talk to you. I need to talk to someone.” Bdubs turned away. He bit his lip. “I would never have wanted them to be locked in there. I just... had poor judgement in a time of panic.” Cub walked over to him.

“What do we tell everyone?” Cub asked. Bdubs thought for a second.

“I've told everyone if they come back and are not insane, all is fine. But they won't come back, not likely at least!” Bdubs crossed his arms. “Let's wait a few days. Then tell everyone. That's our best bet... unless you have a better idea?”

"Not really...” Cub said. Bdubs walked out of the office. He smiled. There was no way they were alive. He chuckled and walked out of town hall. The sunset made the shadows stretch and reach like grabbing arms. Stress's glass shop forced the light to dance in clashing ways. The Barge sat in darkness, covered by trees and other shops. Bdubs soaked in the thick, cold air and flew away. The shadows grew and latched onto the streets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good Morning!!!! (For hindsight, I'm uploading this a 7:40 before school)  
> Hope everyone has a good day!  
> Don't have much else to say!!!


	26. No Matter How I Die

Iskall and Mumbo were brought to a dining hall. Heavy purple accents and silver linings graced their eyes. A grand clock was hung on the wall, reading six thirty. They were brought to two seats. The quiet that floated over them was welcome. But it didn't last very long.

The door busted open. Iskall and Mumbo turned to see Grian in the arms of two guards. He was wearing a brown button-up with a teal bowtie. His pants were dark teal and shoes were brown. Mumbo tried to hold in his laugh. Grian wasn't even struggling but the guards acted as if he was a bomb about to go off. He shoved him into the chair next to Mumbo and locked his chains to the chair, making the long enough for him to reach them table. Deep bags were under his eyes. He looked at his friends.

 _“Iskall will never forgive Grian. You shouldn’t either, as if your opinion matters.”_ Abomination growled.

“How's it going?” He slurred his words. Mumbo couldn't help but laugh. Iskall smiled.

“Have they been treating you well, dude?” He asked. Grian put his head down on the table.

“Sorry for stealing the rock...” He mumbled. Iskall patted his head.

“It's okay.”

 _“F**k you, 85.”_ Abomination said. Mumbo laughed.

“That's what you get, now give me five bucks.” He said to seemingly no one. Iskall and Grian looked at him. Mumbo froze. “I mean: look at you two!”

“I don't think I've ever had to take this much medication...” Grian mumbled, putting his head back down. “At least my back doesn't hurt...” Iskall covered his mouth. “You guys looked good tonight...”

Iskall laughed. “Thanks... you do too!” His laugh turned into a cough. Mumbo rubbed his face. Suddenly, doors on the other side of the room opened, reviling the three kings. They sat down across the table. Mumbo elbowed Grian and he looked up.

“Good evening gentlemen!” The Arch Mage said. The Mechlord bowed his head and The Worker Chief stood still.

“I don't like how out of it the abomination seems...” The Chief said. Mumbo narrowed his eyes.

“Sir, it's been a long couple of weeks for him.” Mumbo said, sitting up straight. “He's had to deal with a lot recently.” Iskall clenched his mouth. The Chief nodded, narrowing his eyes as well. The Mechlord leaned forward.

“I understand none of you are familiar with up to date function, even if you were once citizens.” He said. Iskall nodded. “I would like to ask; who built the portal? Those are extremely hard to construct without guidance.”

“I did.” Mumbo said. Iskall and Grian cringed.

“No! It was me...” Grian tried to sound awake. The kings looked at each other.

“Where ever did you get instructions?” The Chief asked. Mumbo looked at Iskall. Iskall shook his head slightly. Mumbo closed his eyes.

“Abomination gave them to me.” He said without hesitation.

 _“They won't be able to save you from me, might as well sell me out. All they can do is kill my vassal. You'll die before anyone else.”_ Abomination warned. Mumbo looked forward.

“How will we be able to go home? When?” Mumbo asked. The Arch Mage caught on.

“And you will tell us where Abomination is?” He asked, eyes growing with anticipation.

“Yes.” Mumbo answered. The kings huddled over away from the hermits.

“Listen, we send this abomination home in turn for _the_ Abomination.” The Arch Mage said. The Mechlord nodded. The worker Chief sighed, but nodded with them. They all sat back down.

Observers come with food for everyone, setting down beautiful plates. An observer came to Iskall and handed him a potion.

“This will cure the poisoning.” He said. Iskall smiled and opened it. He lifted it to his mouth when he coughed. He dropped the bottle on his lap and he coughed into his hands. Mumbo jumped up.

“Iskall!” He yelled. The Arch Mage and Mechlord stood as well. Iskall heaved and pushed himself away from the table. Grian stood up but was jerked down by the chains. Iskall fell to his knees and threw up. Mumbo knelt down and grabbed his shoulders, steadying him. The observer that brought the poison ran out and brought back The Medic.

“He's stage four!” He yelled running over as well. He lifted the empty bottle. “He didn't drink anything?” Mumbo shook his head. The Medic cursed under his breath. An observer brought over a trash can. Iskall puked into it.

“Get him to his room!” The Arch Mage commanded. A couple guards lifted Iskall and the trash can out of the room. Mumbo and Grian looked at each other.

“Lord, we need to import more hearth stones from Foraminis. Our mines are coming up empty and if this young observer goes into stage five... there's no coming back.” The Medic said, rushing over to the Mechlord. He nodded slowly.

“Okay. One shipment, we need no more. We will find a new location to mine.” He agreed. The Chief didn't look happy with the choice. Mumbo spoke up.

“When you give a new potion to Iskall, bring a stone to Grian.” The Kings looked at him shocked. “If not, I will not tell you where Abomination is...”

 _"I should have chosen a weaker link...”_ Abomination groaned. Mumbo smiled.

“And let me take him back to my room.” He added. The kings looked at each other. "Abomination knows how to get out of here... I _will_ leave if my requirements aren't met..." Mumbo furrowed his brows.

“Just give him what he wants!” The Mechlord said.

“That is the stupidest idea to ever come from your mouth.” The Chief scoffed.

“We can compromise!” The Arch Mage turned to Mumbo.

"Time running out!" The redstoner called.

“On account that you have the abomination chained to its bed frame and give it it's... _medication.._.” The Arch Mage said. Mumbo looked at Grian, then held out a hand. The Arch Mage took it before his brothers interrupted. They shook their hands.

The Chief and The Mechlord froze and anticipation. 

_“Maybe I did teach you something...”_ Abomination whispered. _“It's impressive how far you've gotten. Too bad the fourth stage of observer poisoning is quite a quick faze.”_

"That wasn't so hard..." Mumbo spat at the three kings. Abominations chuckled.

Mumbo closed his eyes and grabbed Grian. A guard quickly unlocked the builder and they walked out. The redstoner wrapped his arm around Grian. They walked down the hall to the room and Mumbo laid Grian down on his bed. Iskall was sleeping still half leaned over the bucket.

“Abomination, get out here.” Mumbo said. The creature did as it was told and zipped from Mumbo's body. Exhaustion washed over Mumbo, and he pushed himself against the wall.

“You put the kings in their place.” Abomination mocked. “Good job.”

“What did you do...?” Mumbo wheezed. Abomination smiled.

“I took all of your energy. Winner took all.”

“What did you win?” Mumbo scoffed. Abomination laughed, floating over to Grian.

“Likely hood is, none of you will make it back to Hermitcraft.” It said, pushing Grian’s hair out of his face. “Your friends will all think you died. I win. Your friends will never be the same.” It floated back to Mumbo. “I don't know if you guys realize this, but...”

“What?” Mumbo panicked. Abomination smiled widely. It laughed.

“Why, each day you spend here, is one week in the overworld.” Mumbo's face dropped and so did his stomach. “As soon as that clock hits six tomorrow morning, Xisuma Void will get all the hermits together and announce your deaths. Of course, you, Grian, and Iskall will be dead soon anyways, but say you do make it back. You come back day after tomorrow and it's been a month. Good luck.”

Mumbo covered his face. Abomination sat beside him. The redstoner let tears fall from his eyes.

“There, there.” Abomination said in a babyish voice. “I'm warning you. Don't tell Iskall or Grian.”

“Why?” Mumbo said looking up.

“Cause’ I think it would be funny.” It mocked. “And believe me, I will punish you for telling them. Go on, you should be getting to bed.”

"You're so sick." Mumbo spat. Abomination laughed with nothing behind it.

Abomination sunk into Mumbo and he sat there. He felt alone again. He got up and grabbed a piece of paper and wrote a letter. He knew what he needed to do. It was inevitable. He placed the letter in one of Iskall’s pockets. 

Mumbo walked out to the balcony. He looked out at the expansive void of galaxies and stars. As much as he hated to admit it, Abomination had got to him. That monster had broken him. But he was going to save Iskall and Grian and Hermitcraft. 

No matter how he died, Mumbo was going to make sure everyone was okay.


	27. He Was Never In The Right...

Scar looked at his calendar and crossed off the seventh day. The sun was coming up and it had officially been a week. His communicator buzzed. He gulped and read the message.

 _"All hermits need to meet at town hall for an important announcement.”_ X texted. Scar stepped out of the snail and flew off towards the shopping district. He landed inside the town hall where Xisuma, Etho, EX, and Doc were. X nodded to them and walked out to face the other hermits.

“You all know that Grian, Iskall, and Mumbo... are gone... but I, um...” X avoided the eyes of hermits. “Iskall messaged me before they left and told me that if they didn't come back in a week...” Xisuma took a shaky breath. “To assume they died.” The silence was deafening. “Doc and I are working to open the portal and try and find them, but we don't know...”

Bdubs couldn't help but smile. He turned away and hide behind a tree, hiding himself. He laughed silently. He grabbed his hair, pulling it. Tears fell down his face. Bdubs fell to his knees. His face started to hurt from smiling.

“We'll... we'll have the... the funeral at the end of this month.” X tried to keep his voice steady. “By then we might have found them using the portal, but our hopes aren't high. We don't understand the method and it's complicated. I'm sorry.” The hermits stood still and quiet. False covered her mouth.

“You can all go home.” Xisuma said, turning around. He wrapped his arms around himself. Etho had his hand over his mouth. Scar closed his eyes. Doc crossed his arms. EX pulled his brother into a hug.

* * *

Bdubs landed at the top of the cliff slowly developing. He laughed uncontrollably.

“I did it.” He breathed. “I DID IT!” He yelled. Tears cascaded down his face. “I SAVED THEM! I'M IN THE RIGHT!” He fell to his knees. He laughed insanely, turning from human to observer. He spread his arms out.

Doc flew back to his base when he heard laugher pierce the quiet. He turned to the sound and started flying to the Cliffside Bdubs had been working on. Something was on top, laughing. Or what could’ve been laughing. It was starting to sound like crying. As he got closer, he recognized the red bandana.

“Double O!” He shouted into distance. “Bdubs!” Bdubs didn’t move, unable to hear Doc. He stood up and he rubbed his face. Doc swooped down and landed behind him, grabbing his shoulders and spinning him around. “What the heck was that?” Bdubs looked at him with wide eyes. He transformed back into a human.

“You saw that?” He panicked, grabbing Doc’s arms. His smiled faded on his face and he started to look scared. “Tell me I'm right! Please tell me I did the right thing!" Doc held him still.

“Whoa, dude, what’s going on?” Doc asked, trying to keep Bdubs upright.

“I don’t know, ever since I found out that Grian was an abomination, I’ve wanted him dead. And I know that’s not right! So why do I feel that way?” Bdubs looked up at Doc. His eyes started to water. “Why am I happy they are dead?” Doc was speechless. Bdubs’ eyes watered and he shook intensely. His grip was surprisingly strong. "Please tell me what I did was good!"

“Hey, it’s okay.” Doc stuttered out.

“No it’s not! I’m genuinely glad they’re dead. That’s not okay!” He yelled. “You know when you have a feeling, and you know it’s wrong, and you tell yourself you don’t believe it, but you really do? That’s what going on here! I want to think I did the right thing... but know what I did was awful..." His voice trembled.

“Well I’m not a therapist! I don’t even know how to comfort people, let alone help them get past immoral feelings and opinions!” Doc shouted back. They looked at each other for a few minutes in heavy silence. The sun was coming down on the horizon and Doc finally looked away. He took in a long breath. “Let’s talk tomorrow. We can’t do much about them now…” He jumped off the cliff, flying into the dark sky, leaving Bdubs alone.

Doc landed at Mumbo’s base and jumped down the small opening. X was working on the portal.

“You took a while.” X said, standing up. Doc nodded.

“Bdubs needed to talk.” He said quietly. Xisuma looked at him and wiped redstone off his hands with a towel.

“About what?”

“Nothing.”

They began working again, putting redstone around and using pistons to push blocks in place. If they were doing something wrong it was too far gone from the original frame to go back. Doc thought about what Bdubs said. It made him cringe and tense up. X noticed this but kept his mouth shut.

It was quiet as they worked. Neither Xisuma or Doc said anything the entire time. Even without communication, they worked like gears. They worked all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today is my sister's birthday! Yay!
> 
> My exams are coming up, we are in the endgame of Disgrace...
> 
> I hope you guys have a great day!


	28. All Things Must End

"You two know what's going to happen to your friend, right?"

"We-we... do..."

"He's doing a very honorable thing." The door closed.

Mumbo had couldn't fully open his eyes. He closed them again...

Mumbo woke up on one of the beds in the lavish room. He heard quiet talking across the room. He forced himself to sit up and open his aching eyes. Grian and Iskall were whispering to each other. They faced away from Mumbo as they talked.

“Guys?” Mumbo tried to say, but he couldn’t. His throat hurt and was scratchy. Grian and Iskall heard him anyway.

“Mumbo, you awake?” Iskall asked. He only nodded. Grian looked at Iskall.

“How are you going to give them Abomination?” He asked.

“They’ll have to kill me…” Mumbo coughed out. Iskall nodded and closed his eyes. He put his hands in his pockets. He felt something but ignored it.

“Are you sure there is no other way?” He asked. Mumbo slowly nodded. Grian turned around.

“Guys, I’m so sorry.” He said. Iskall turned to him. “This all started because I lost my temper. I caused this mess. I am so, _so_ sorry.” Iskall put a hand on Grian’s shoulder.

“An you lost your temper because some rock broke. That’s not your fault.” He explained. “People have the right to get mad, and it just happened that you have friends you care about you and got in your business. I know we can’t excuse your outburst, but you shouldn’t blame yourself for every that happened since.” Grian turned to him. “We still care about you even though you are some strange creature from another dimension. Remember, so am I.”

Mumbo watched them talk.

“Did you guys get the stuff?” He wheezed. They turned to him.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry for not bringing you up to date.” Iskall said. He tried to smile but he didn’t seem to be able to. “You’ve been asleep for a while. It’s almost been a day.” Mumbo froze. In the overworld, they had been here for two weeks.

“Are you okay?” Grian asked. Mumbo didn’t look at them. Officially, they were dead to the other hermits. There was a knock at the door. It opened, reviling two guards and The Arch Mage.

“Sirs, we need to speak to you about Abomination.”

They walked down the hall and down a stairway. They stepped into a dark room that could’ve been called a dungeon. A machine stood in the middle with pipes going in and out of the tube in the middle. Needles suck out from the walls, also feeding into tubes that ran to large display screens.

“We’ve assumed that Abomination is hiding away inside of you.” The king explained. “The only way to get him out is to kill you. I assume you are aware of this.” They nodded. “Because we have already made our side of the deal apparent, you do not have a choice at this time. Your friends will go home in turn.” Mumbo looked at his friends then nodded. Iskall grabbed him and hugged him and Grian.

“It’ll be okay.” Mumbo said, finding his voice for a moment.

“What are we going to do without you?” Grian laughed nervously.

“What are we going to tell everyone?” Iskall added. Mumbo’s head fell.

“I don’t know.” He said. “You guys will be fine. You’ll figure it out.” They let go from the hug. The king led Mumbo into the large tube and closed it around him. Mumbo forced himself not to scream as not to worry Iskall and Grian. They looked away, Iskall letting tears fall down his face. What looked like oil flowed through the tubes, emptying into a bottle.

The process felt like it lasted forever. It lasted for several hours at least.

A guard turned the machine off. The king opened the tube. They didn’t dare to look.

“We'll take care of Abomination.” The king said, handing a guard the bottle of darkness. Iskall and Grian nodded as they were led out of the room. They traveled down the hallway and to another empty room with only pipes suspended in the ceiling and walls and a small tablet on the wall. The king pressed a few bottoms and a portal opened in front of them. “Good bye and good luck.” He said. Grian and Iskall silently exited through the portal.

Grian and Iskall fell through the sky and landed in the ocean at spawn, getting sucked down into the respawn room. Grian was shaking. Iskall tried to take in deep breaths, but they were shallow and shaky.

“Iskall…” Grian asked, not turning towards him. “What are we going to tell everyone?” Iskall didn’t know the answer.

“That he sacrificed himself.” He spoke slowly. “I guess.” They both grabbed replacement sets of elytra to fly back to the shopping district. “Let’s go.”

They flew back to the shopping district and made a clumsy landing on the top of town hall.

“Augh, we don’t have our communicators!” Grian growled. Iskall pulled him behind one of the trophies.

“I don’t think we need it. In fact, I think we are right on time…” They looked down at hermits beginning to gather. Everyone looked stood awkwardly around town hall.

“What is going on? It hasn’t been a week has it?” Grian asked. “They look like they’re going to a funeral.” Iskall remembered the thing in his pocket.

“Wait.” He pulled it out. It was a note. “It says, ‘open when you are in the overworld.’” Grian shrugged and looked over Iskall’s shoulder. “’If you are reading this, you must be home and surely I’m dead. Abomination told me something I wasn’t allowed to tell you: Every day that we spent in the observer’s dimension, it was one week in the overworld. I would have told you this, but I can’t trust Abomination. I’m so sorry.’” Iskall looked at Grian and then counted on his fingers. They locked eyes.

“Dude, it’s been like three weeks!” Grain spat. “That’s our funeral!” Iskall raised an eyebrow. He continued reading.

“’I can’t explain what Abomination said to me all this time, but it wasn’t good. I’m so glad it was me and no one else. I’m looking back at everything and I can’t help but see where I wasn’t good enough. I’m sorry for the places where I messed up. I want you guys to look back at me with good memories, but you probably just remember where I messed up. Still, I couldn’t have been happier anyplace else. You are the best friends I could’ve ever had and that goes for every one of the server. You guys don’t have to tell anyone a grand story of me sacrificing myself or anything fancy. Just let everyone know that I couldn’t have been happier. I’ll miss you guys… love, Mumbo’”

The two hermits sat in silence. Iskall wiped his face off and stood up. Grian followed suit.

“Come on. Let’s make this funeral open casket.” They opened their elytras.

* * *

Xisuma looked out at the crowd. He was expected to speak, naturally. He looked around at his fellow hermits and sighed. Scar and Doc stood to back of the crowd. So did Bdubs, strangely off to the side. EX hadn’t come, deciding he wasn’t really needed or wanted there. The rest of the hermits gathered in front of the town hall. X started to walk up the stairs and looked out at the crowd. How in the world did it come to this?

“Thank you all for coming here.” He started. He looked up. “I hate that we have to be here for this reason. These past couple of months have been… hard. Things happened that no one could have seen coming and… It’s with great sorrow that I had to announce the… passing of three hermits. Mumbo, Grian, and Iskall are missed. They will be. It’s up in the air what happened, we can’t seem to be in an agreement of who is really at fault here.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Gasps filled the crowd and X heard two people land behind him. He spun around.

“We’ll tell you what happened!” Grian said loudly. Iskall nodded.

"Please X, we’ll take it from here.” He said. Xisuma slowly back down the stairs. The two stepped forward. “If we could have everyone’s attention?” The hermit stood quietly and still. Iskall nodded to Grian.

“We went through the portal on our own will.” He explained. “Mumbo built that portal to help me and Iskall. We weren’t going to let him do it alone, so we came with him.”

“He saved our lives!” Iskall and Grian looked at each other and then met eyes with Bdubs. “When… _someone_ tried to take it away.” Iskall forced his voice to stay steady.

“Mumbo’s…” Grian sucked in a deep breath. Iskall looked away. They didn’t need to finish what they were saying. Everyone understood. “He told us that he couldn’t have been happier anywhere but here.”

“We’re fine. Nothing should go wrong anymore. We aren’t going to sell out who did some questionable things because we feel like we shouldn’t make that specific thing a public affair.” Iskall said, looking at Bdubs. The boomer’s face was pale. He couldn’t even breath. Doc and Scar noticed this. Grian wiped off his face. Iskall looked at the note left by Mumbo. He closed his eyes and clutched the paper.


	29. The End

Grian laid on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He put his hands under his head. He’d stayed there since that morning. Or even when he got back home for the first time in what felt like weeks.

“Hey, G?” Iskall asked from the door way. Grian sat up and looked over. Iskall stood with Doc, and… Bdubs… Grian sighed.

“Come in.” He huffed, slumping forward. His brown bottom-up hung unevenly on his shoulders. The hermits walked in. Grian stood up and stretched. Bdubs looked petrified.

“Doc walked to talk to us about something Bdubs said to him a while back.” Iskall explained. “I figured it would be a good time to just talk.” Doc adjusted his lab coat.

“Bdubs told me that he was happy you guys were dead, but he didn’t know why.” He said. Bdubs didn’t met anyone’s eyes. “I didn’t know what to say at the time, so I didn’t say anything.” Grian looked at him.

“Look, I don’t know what wrong with me!” Bdubs said, backing up. "I just wanted you guys dead... You were a danger to Hermitcraft... When I saw you guys opening that portal, I knew what I had to do! It never mattered if you were going in or not, I didn't want you to come back!" He took a sharp breath. "I was scared of you guys... You were abominations, you couldn't be trusted. I wanted you dead and I was happy but now you're here and I feel terrible! I know what I did was awful... But I _had_ to do it!" He raised his voice as tears came to his eyes.

“Bdubs, calm down!” Doc said in a lower voice Bdubs looked at him. Iskall put a hand on their shoulders.

“Guys,” He said. “Just give it up. Bdubs, please just try to stay calm.” Grian stretched his back and Bdubs flinched. They looked at him.

“Sorry…” He whispered. Doc rubbed his face. Bdubs looked down.

“You’re scared of me and Mumbo because we are- kinda- abominations. Or at least Mumbo had Abomination inside of him. Why weren’t you scared of me before?” Grian asked. Bdubs looked at him. “And why aren’t _you_ scared of me?” He gestured to Iskall.

“I don’t know.” Iskall said. “I just realized you were nothing to be afraid of and, honestly, you're really not that bad, even when you were mad.” Grian looked at him, offended.

"I found out you were an abomination, and I got scared, so did Iskall.” He looked up at them. “When that portal opened, I finally understood what I was afraid of…” They all looked at him expectantly. His eyes watered. “I was- _am-_ afraid of going back. You guys opened a portal to another dimension that I never wanted to see again. You guys could've done something awful to Hermitcraft .You don’t know how poorly it could have gone. ” The hermits looked at each other.

“Don’t bring this up with anyone.” Doc ordered. “I think it’s best if no one really knows what happened. No one else was here; they can’t prove a thing.” 

Doc and Bdubs left, flying out of the base and into the warm morning air. Grian sighed. Iskall looked at him.

“I never thought about what we’d do after this point.” He said, putting his hands on his waist. Grian nodded.

“Didn’t think we’d get this far. I thought either we’d all die or we wouldn’t even end up going through the portal.” He added, rubbing his face. “I think I’d rather wake up in my old rustic house than this really be happening.” Grian laughed. Iskall smiled a little bit.

“Yeah, I get that. This just feels so… wrong. So impossible.” He said.

The two stood in the silence of the morning. Grian noticed that Iskall was still wearing the observer's clothes.

Grian wiped off tears he hardly realized were there. Iskall pulled the builder into a hug without warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone had a good time reading this!  
> Disgrace was a long road and I'm glad people followed it!  
> I've made an animatic for some of the chapters up one my youtube channel, SkeeCatt22!  
> (P.s. it's pretty crumby, don't expect something amazing)
> 
> I really didn't expect the traction this gained and I want to throw out a huge thank you to everyone!!  
> I've enjoyed reading and responding to comments and seeing how people felt about certain parts!  
> This was a trip that I've really loved and I hope those sentiments are share with the people who were reading! 
> 
> I do have plans for a sequel, but I can't promise anything so soon!
> 
> Thank you all so, SO much!  
> Have a great day everyone!!

**Author's Note:**

> I will be posting a new chapter every Friday (or at least try to)  
> I have already completed this, so a schedule shouldn't be too hard  
> Please go read Featherweight, And The Universe Shifts, Trickster, The Coding Conundrum, The Red Sun Never Sets, and Lost in the Void's Embrace.  
> They all inspired me so much, so I hope I can do the same for someone.  
> :) Have a good day!


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